A Father's Job
by Sashile
Summary: AU, set in season five. Gibbs’ daughter Kelly is a Navy ensign in her third year of medical school. When her high school boyfriend is found dead, she's the prime suspect, and she--and her father--come close to losing everything. Gibbs, Kelly, LTC Mann
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer--I don't own anything NCIS, in case you couldn't figure that out on your own.**

**A Father's Job**

_This is strictly AU, set in season five. Gibbs' first wife, Shannon, died in 1991 just like in the show, but his daughter Kelly lived. She's now a Navy ensign in her third year of medical school at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. When her high school boyfriend is found dead outside National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, she—and her father—find themselves dangerously close to losing everything._

_

* * *

_

Staff Sergeant Jack McLaughlin glanced at his watch again and sighed. She was over half an hour late, which was nothing like her. Even back in high school, she was punctual almost to a fault, and he couldn't imagine four years at the Naval Academy or more than two years of medical school would reverse that.

"Come on, Kelly," he muttered to himself, ignoring the looks from the Navy lieutenants—probably doctors—walking by. "It's hella cold out here." He smiled slightly at his phrasing, thinking that that last deployment in Iraq and all the time he spent around Specialist Greene must have rubbed off on him. He was certainly more profane before he left.

He pulled the sleeve of his jacket up again to check his watch and groaned when he realized only two minutes had gone by. When he emailed his high school girlfriend and asked if they could meet, he should have been more specific. Of course, he had no idea that she would have suggested meeting outside National Naval Medical Center, much less that she would leave him waiting in the cold for more than half an hour.

He dug his cell phone from his shoulder pocket and was about to call her and ask for an ETA, but he never got the chance. He didn't even hear the report from the bullet that pierced his skull.

* * *

Special Agent Tony DiNozzo glanced up from his computer at the sound of the elevator doors sliding open and grinned involuntarily. Before the young brunette could notice, he replaced the expression with one of stern concentration, again appearing to study the computer as he watched her out of the corner of her eye.

She entered the bullpen and stopped just before his desk, her eyes sweeping the four desks, three of which were empty. Her gaze finally fell upon DiNozzo. "Ensign Gibbs," he acknowledged, sounding official.

She stared at him for a moment without saying anything, her bright blue eyes scrutinizing. "Special Agent DiNozzo," she finally replied with a slight nod.

As expected, she was the first to crack, a large grin spreading across her face. DiNozzo laughed and stood to give her a hug. "It's good to see you, Kelly," he said sincerely.

"You, too, Tony," she replied as they separated.

"What brings you in?" he asked, finally registering that it had been several months since DiNozzo's boss' daughter had visited NCIS headquarters, as her third year of medical school had her doing rotations in military hospitals around the country. Today, she was out of uniform, dressed casually in khakis and a wool coat, her long light hair in a ponytail, making her look even younger than her twenty-four years.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said with a chuckle. "It is Sunday, you know. Doesn't my dad ever give you guys a day off?"

"Not when we're in the middle of a case. You should know that by now."

"No kidding," she replied, rolling her eyes slightly. "I just got in from Hawaii and wanted to ask if Dad wanted to go to dinner, but he wasn't at home and not answering his cell phone, so I figured I'd find him here. Any idea where he is?"

"Right behind you," a third voice said from just outside the elevator. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stepped into view, his ever-present cup of coffee in hand, followed closely by Officer Ziva David and Special Agent Tim McGee. "I expected you yesterday."

To DiNozzo's surprise, the younger Gibbs' tanned face pinked slightly. "There were some…unexpected developments," she finally said, attempting to hide her embarrassment with a sip from her own cup of coffee.

Agent Gibbs' eyebrows rose. "Unexpected developments in the form of one Marine First Lieutenant Dillon?" he asked. Ensign Gibbs' face turned even more red.

"He's in town for a briefing," she finally admitted. "He picked me up from the airport last night and we went out to dinner."

"I did not know Gibbs' interrogation techniques applied to his daughter," Ziva whispered to Tony as the two stood back by Tony's desk.

"Usually, they don't," he whispered back. "Med school must be making her soft. Or maybe it's the Marine boyfriend."

"I was not aware that Marine boyfriends made Navy officers soft," David commented.

"Love does crazy things," he said, earning him an eye roll from his partner. A few seconds went by before they realized that everyone else had stopped talking and were watching them.

"Don't you two have work to do?" Agent Gibbs asked.

"On it, Boss," DiNozzo said hastily, retreating back to his computer as Ziva quickly made her way to her desk.

Gibbs turned back to his daughter and opened his mouth to speak, but the musical tones of her phone ringing interrupted his train of thought. Kelly placed her coffee mug on his desk to reach into her right pocket and dig out the slim device. She glanced at the number and frowned before silencing the ringer. "Don't know the number," she explained as she slipped the iPhone back into her pocket. "I'll call back later."

"New phone?"

She nodded, reaching for her coffee. "I dropped the old one in the water coming back from sailing," she explained. Seeing the look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Don't start. Caiden already made fun of me for over half an hour about it. Besides, it's not as if _you_ have that great of a track record with phones."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Agent Gibbs replied, not even trying to conceal his grin. The smile turned into an expression of concentration as he processed her awkward move with her coffee and phone, and the fact that her left hand hadn't budged from her coat pocket since he saw her talking with DiNozzo. Curious about what he would find on her left hand—specifically, the ring finger of her left hand—after the dinner with her boyfriend of more than three years, he began to pull her arm from the pocket when her phone rang again.

"Stop," she ordered, waving his arm off. "I guess someone really wants to get a hold of me." She repeated her routine with the coffee and the phone, keeping her left hand firmly planted in her coat pocket. She frowned at the display on her phone again, this time answering. "Ensign Kelly Gibbs," she said in her most official voice. A second later, her face brightened as she looked up at her father and grinned. "Hi, Holly. I didn't recognize your number." Agent Gibbs rolled his eyes and groaned as he walked around his desk and took a seat. DiNozzo, McGee, and David gave up pretending to not pay attention and focused on Ensign Gibbs.

She nodded slightly, her ponytail bobbing before she spoke again. "Right now? I'm at NCIS. Yeah, he wasn't answering his phone…yeah," she finished with a laugh, pausing again as Army Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann said something on the other end. "I got back yesterday afternoon. Yeah, it was essentially a red-eye flight. Six hour time difference and a really long flight make for an uncomfortable transition." She frowned and looked up at her father. "Come in to your office? Why?"

Agent Gibbs stood from his chair and gestured for his daughter to hand over the phone. "Just sec," she said to Mann. She handed the phone over.

"Hello, Holly." He didn't waste any time with pleasantries before getting down to business. "Is there any particular reason _why_ you want to see my daughter at CID?" He listened to her reply, his expression blank. "And you didn't feel the need to tell me this _yesterday_?" he demanded. He didn't even wait for a reply before removing the phone from his ear. Unable to figure out how to hang up, he handed it back to Kelly. "Grab your gear," he said to his team.

"What?" DiNozzo asked. "We're already working on a case!"

"Kelly," Gibbs said to his daughter. She gave him a quick grin before walking the few steps to slap DiNozzo in the back of the head, causing Ziva to laugh. "DiNozzo, Ziva, go to NNMC. Army Staff Sergeant was killed outside the hospital last night. CID seemed to have forgotten that that's a _Navy_ base. They have the crime scene cordoned off already. McGee, you're with me."

"Where are we going, Boss?" McGee asked, grabbing his Sig.

"CID," Gibbs replied, already halfway to the elevator.

"What about me?" Kelly demanded.

"You stay here," Gibbs said forcefully. She frowned.

"But she asked _me_ to come," she argued. Her frown deepened. "Wait. What does this have to do with me?"

Gibbs paused and turned back to face his daughter. "The dead sergeant is Jack McLaughlin." She frowned before a look of recognition crossed her face.


	2. Chapter 2

Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann was waiting for Agents Gibbs and McGee in the lobby of the Army Criminal Investigative Division, saving them the hassle of having to sign in and wait for an escort. "Where's Kelly?" were the first words out of her mouth.

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "Good to see you, too, Holly," he said dryly. Colonel Mann rolled her eyes and headed back toward her office without another word.

"Man, I wish Tony and Ziva were here," McGee muttered under his breath as he followed the two senior investigators.

"Care to tell me what's going on?" Gibbs asked after Mann closed the office door. She sighed.

"I told you already. Staff Sergeant McLaughlin was found last night outside NNMC with a single gunshot wound, center of the forehead. It didn't take long to determine he was dead, and they called us."

"And then you should have called _us_," Gibbs pointed out. "We've had this situation before. The base the crime is committed on trumps who the dead guy belongs to. NCIS should be the lead on this and you know it."

"I was going to call you, before we found this in his coat pocket." Mann picked up the remote to the projector, revealing a display of a document, an email, judging from the header. "Obviously, I had to check out why our victim had an email in his pocket from Ensign Gibbs before calling Agent Gibbs to lead the investigation."

Gibbs ignored her jibe, quickly scanning the short email with a frown. "Kelly didn't write this," he said bluntly. Both Mann and McGee frowned.

"Um, Boss?" McGee finally said. "How do you know?"

"Because Kelly had dinner with her boyfriend last night," he said slowly, as if explaining to a child. He turned back to the email and shook his head. "She hasn't done a rotation at Bethesda in twelve weeks, and I don't even know the last time she was at USUHS, so she'd have no reason to be on base. And, she hasn't spoken to McLaughlin in more than six years. She wouldn't email him out of the blue and say she wanted to talk, because there's nothing to talk about."

Mann sighed. "Gibbs, if this were anyone but your daughter—,"

"She's being set up, Holly," he interrupted. "And I intend to find out by who." He stood to leave, gesturing for McGee to do the same.

"Sit down," Mann said forcefully. Gibbs stopped, but didn't return to his seat. "Sit," she repeated. McGee's eyes went from his boss to his boss' former girlfriend, waiting to see who would win. Finally, Gibbs sat.

"I want to find out who did this," Mann said after a long, silent battle of the wills. "And I'm not going to do a half-assed job on this investigation just because your daughter is involved. Now, you play along and help us, or you can stay out of the way." Gibbs didn't reply, but kept his gaze locked on hers, his face expressionless. "I'm offering to keep you in the loop, Gibbs," Mann said.

"I want my team involved," Gibbs finally said, his first sign of assenting. Mann was about to protest, but then realized that this would be the only way of getting NCIS's help at all. She nodded slowly.

"I'll make the arrangements." Gibbs just nodded in reply, again rising from his chair and heading for the door. This time, Colonel Mann did nothing to stop him.

* * *

After using her father's computer to check her email and confirm that her grade from her last rotation wasn't yet posted, Kelly Gibbs was bored. She contemplated giving Caiden Dillon, her boyfriend since her senior year at the Naval Academy, a call, but remembered that he was scheduled to be in the flight simulator all afternoon. She sighed in frustration, leaning back in her father's chair and staring at the ceiling and wishing there were someone around she could at least talk to.

She suddenly straightened inthe chair, a smile tugging at her lips as she remembered that there _were_ people around she could talk to. Without a second glance back in the bullpen, she first stopped by the communal coffee pot for a refill before making her way toward the elevator.

Abby Sciuto danced around on her ridiculously high-heeled boots as she recalibrated her mass spectrometer, thankful that she had enough time between cases to take care of that task. "I know, Major Mass Spec," she said, closing the lid on the machine and entering the calibration commands. "You are a highly tuned piece of equipment who doesn't get the attention you deserve. You know, I feel like that too, sometimes." She paused at the _ding_ of the elevator, a large grin spreading across her lips as the smell of coffee wafted toward her. There was only one person who would come down to the lab unannounced like that, and he _always_ smelled like coffee.

"I hope you brought something for me, Gibbs," she said, her back to the entrance of the lab as she checked her computer. "Because I have spent the last three hours sterilizing and recalibrating the equipment, and now my army and I are ready to go."

"Sorry, Abby," an amused female voice answered. "Wrong Gibbs."

"Mini Gibbs!" Abby exclaimed, turning to engulf the young woman in a large hug. "It is _so_ good to see you! When did you get back?"

"Yesterday afternoon," Kelly replied with a laugh as Abby finally released her. "I was going to see if my dad wanted to grab dinner tonight, but then he ran off on a case." She took a seat on one of the high lab stools Abby had scattered around her space but never seemed to use, studying her surroundings as she took a sip of coffee. She was no stranger to the lab; as a chemistry major at the Naval Academy, she spent her summers doing forensics research with Abby's guidance. She was pleased—and strangely saddened—to find that little had changed over the years.

"I can't believe he made you stick around here," Abby said, making a face. "That is _so _freakish-overprotective father of him. You should have told him that you're an adult and you're more than capable of taking care of yourself without his help."

Ensign Gibbs grinned at the forensics scientist. "It isn't that at all," she assured her. "I think he's keeping me here to keep me from being snatched up as a suspect. The case they're working on is a murdered Army sergeant outside NNMC. The sergeant is my high school boyfriend."

"Oh," Abby said with a grimace. "That does not look good for you."

Gibbs shrugged a shoulder. "I haven't talked to the guy since high school graduation, so I'm sure any suggestions that I'm involved would be short-lived. Do you need any help getting the lab ready?"

"No, I got it," Abby replied, giving the medical student a trademark grin. "You can tell me about Hawaii. That would keep me entertained."

Gibbs laughed, feeling much better about coming into NCIS. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed spending time with her father's co-workers. "Did you get my postcard?" she asked as she pulled a packet of surgical suture from her pocket. "There really wasn't much more to it than that. I spent most of time in the hospital, delivering babies and trying to avoid bitchy OB/GYN residents." She opened the sutures, absently pulling the needle through the fabric of her pant leg before popping it off and expertly tying surgical knots with the strings. Since she wanted to go into surgery after graduation, she always carried sutures with her to practice her knots. She had the two-handed knot down, and was still working on perfecting her one-handed technique.

"Oh, my God," Abby blurted out when she turned to face Gibbs. "What happened to your finger?"

Kelly stopped what she was doing and held up her left hand, showing off the aluminum and foam splint on her forefinger. "Yet another example of why I needed to avoid bitchy residents," she said bitterly. "One sliced my finger in the OR, and then had the gall to offer to sew it up herself. I told her if she ever touched me again, I'd charge her with assault."

"It's a good thing you're right-handed," Abby commented. Kelly shook her head.

"But I shoot left-handed," she reminded her. Abby's eyes went wide. Kelly was a competitive riflist, one of the best in the world. She won national championships in high school and college, consistently made the President's Hundred every year, and earned the bronze medal at the Olympics more than three years before. Her left index finger had more talent than some small nations.

"Is it going to be okay?" Abby asked in wonder. Gibbs waved aside the concern.

"It was repaired by the head hand surgeon at Tripler, who prescribed a strict regimen for my rehab, which would have made me laugh if it weren't so sad. I mean, who ever heard of physical therapy for a finger?" She glanced down at the splint and sighed. "Just don't tell my dad, okay? I don't want him to freak out about it." She gave a small grin. "I was trying to hide my hand from him earlier. I think he thinks I'm engaged or something. He was starting to look worried."

Abby grinned at the thought. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." She pressed her lips close together and ran her fingers over them as if zipping them closed. "So," she said, turning back toward her computer. "Hawaii."

Kelly laughed at Abby's persistence. "You don't even _like_ warm weather and sunshine," she pointed out.

"But you do," Abby replied. "Which meant it should have been a lot of fun. Well, a lot of fun for _you_. I would have hated it."

Kelly laughed again. "Like I said, it was all pretty dull, until Caiden visited for a week." She saw the raised eyebrows and 'tell me more' look on Abby's face. "And you can't _that_ to my dad, either," she said quickly. Abby just grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

"This is useless," Agent Tony DiNozzo complained to Officer David for what had to be the tenth time since arriving at the crime scene—rather, what was left of the crime scene. The body had been taken to the Armed Forced Institute of Pathology for autopsy the day before, leaving them with only a six-by-six square in the grass near the front of the hospital. There wasn't even any blood to mark the spot where Staff Sergeant McLaughlin had fallen; the shot was so neat, he died instantly. "There is nothing to photograph, nothing to collect…nothing to do."

"He was killed by a sniper," David declared, ignoring her partner's endless complaints. Her eyes scanned the buildings around them as if deciding where the sniper had been. "There would not have been anything here even if we came yesterday."

"You don't know that," DiNozzo argued. "Without a body or talking to any witnesses, you can't say that he was sniped."

She leveled him with a glance before rolling her eyes. "There are no witnesses, Tony. That is the point." She gestured around them. "We are surrounded by Navy officers. Who do you think would be stupid enough to shoot a man point-blank with so many people—potentially armed people—around?"

"They're not armed," DiNozzo said with an eyeroll of his own. "They're _doctors_. Most of them probably don't even know how to fire a gun."

"Kelly Gibbs does," David argued. "She will be a doctor, no?"

He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it when nothing came to mind. "Kelly's different," he finally muttered. Still, he had to admit that she had a point. "Even if he was sniped, we still don't know anything. Without the body, there's no way to figure out where the sniper nest was."

"We know how tall Sergeant McLaughlin was," David pointed out. "And we can get the angle of the shot from the Army's medical examiner. We can calculate the trajectory of the shot and extrapolate the location of the sniper," she said proudly. He just looked at her, his eyebrows still raised.

"Right," he finally said. "I'll get McGoo on that. And what is that going to accomplish? He was shot _yesterday_. The sniper, _if a sniper exists_, would have cleaned up his gear, policed his brass, and left the scene in better condition than he found it."

David shrugged a shoulder. "It is a start." She studied DiNozzo for a moment, her eyes narrowed in scrutiny before looking away. "What do you think Kelly Gibbs has to do with this?"

"She used to go out with him," he replied automatically. "Back in high school. I don't know how CID found out so quickly, though."

"Maybe she is still seeing him?"

DiNozzo didn't bother to try to conceal his laughter. "Right," he finally said, shaking his head. "No. She's been dating Caiden for more than three years."

Ziva shrugged a shoulder again. "She could be seeing both. It has been known to happen."

Tony shook his head. "Not Kelly."

"You are very defensive about her."

He nodded slightly, looking away. "You don't know her as well as I do." He finally looked back at her, and she almost startled at the serious look on his face. "She was still in high school when I joined Gibbs' team," he explained. "She spent a lot of time around the office, came by at least once a week. By the time you came on, she was in her last year at Annapolis. That's a lot less free time to spend at Daddy's office." Ziva didn't say anything as she continued to study her partner. "We understand each other," he said, giving no further explanation.

"Oh, you understand each other," Ziva mocked with a smile. He didn't smile back, but just looked away, appearing occupied with something at the crime scene that wasn't a crime scene. Ziva frowned; her partner was usually quick with a joke, but not this time. She touched his arm, and he finally looked over at her.

"My mom died when I was ten," he said. "Hers died when she was eight. I was raised by an emotionally distant business executive who changed wives more often than he changed golf clubs—and that was a lot. She was raised by, well, Gibbs." David smiled thinly at the comparison. "It can be a lot to deal with sometimes."

"She is lucky she had someone to talk to," Ziva said softly. DiNozzo just shrugged.

"She came out of it a lot better adjusted than I did," he replied.

David grinned, sensing that Tony was done sharing. "As if that is difficult."

* * *

Special Agent Jethro Gibbs turned into his driveway, his headlights illuminating a blue Jeep Liberty hybrid with Maryland plates occupying his usual spot. He smiled slightly as he parked his car on the curb.

"The front door was locked," he said, standing just inside his basement door. "The front door is never locked."

"Maybe it should be," Ensign Kelly Gibbs replied, not looking up from her kneeling position in front of the skeleton of the boat occupying her father's basement. Her khakis and sweater from earlier in the day had been abandoned in favor of worn jeans and a USNA Water Polo sweatshirt two sizes too big. "Someone could break in and take something. Like the rifles."

He snorted in reply, descending the stairs. "Anyone who would know about the rifles would be too afraid of the person keeping sniper rifles to do anything about it." She frowned at his explanation, finally looking up at him with an expression of confusion. "It makes sense," he said.

"Sure, Dad," she replied, giving him a grin before turning back to the boat.

"Careful," he warned. "You're turning that too tight."

She turned back at him and fixed him with a look. "This isn't my first boat, Dad," she finally said. "I know what I'm doing." She gave the vice one more turn before picking up another piece of wood. "Does she have a name yet?"

He shook his head, joining her by the boat, the two of them working together to place the plank. "My official boat namer has been away."

She gave him another grin. "What about the _Pegasus_?" she asked with a teasing tone. He groaned.

"You're not seven anymore," he reminded her. She laughed.

"I still can't believe you actually agreed to that."

"I _told_ you that we would name it whatever you wanted, and that's what you wanted." She smiled at the memory of the first boat she helped him with.

"I'll think of something," she finally said. He nodded, glancing down at her gloved hands.

"What's with the gloves?" he asked with a frown, remembering how she was hiding her hand earlier that day. She frowned in return, hoping he didn't notice the stiffness of the finger brace under the thick cloth.

"I always wear gloves when I'm working on the boat," she reminded him. That had started in junior high, when she decided callused hands weren't attractive. By high school, she no longer cared about that, but didn't want to risk damaging her trigger finger or the hands that would someday save lives. A look of realization crossed her face. "I'm not engaged, Dad," she said softly, turning back to the boat.

Gibbs hesitated at her tone, studying her in profile. With the exception of the brown hair and blue eyes she had gotten from him, her features were all Shannon, and every time she spoke, he couldn't help but remember his late wife. Although she had picked up on quite a few of her father's personality quirks and habits, such as building boats and firing weapons, overall she was more like her mother: optimistic, funny, bubbly, and above all, open. Even though he had spent most of the last sixteen years as a single parent to her, he still faltered at the personal conversations with Kelly. Boats, rifles, crime, honor, service—those were things he could talk about with his daughter until they were both blue in the face, but ask him to talk about feelings, and he didn't know what to do. "Do you want to be?" he finally asked.

She hesitated again before shaking her head. "No," she said. "I don't think so," she amended. She looked at him, her blue eyes locked on his. "Caiden and I have been dating for more than three years. Year one: USNA. Don't look, don't touch, no affection ever. Year two: med school for me, flight school for him. Maryland and Texas. Year three: more med school for me, first posting for him. Maryland and South Carolina. At least we were in the same time zone." She sighed. "Now I live somewhere new every few weeks, and none of those places is anywhere near him. It's an evening here, a week there. I'd like to actually spend some time in the same area code before deciding if we should spend the rest of our lives together. Long distance relationships suck."

He snorted. "You want to try long distance, try Iraq." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He didn't mean to belittle her relationship; he was thinking about his own deployments, the time spent in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm.

"We will," she said, turning back to face him before quickly looking away. "In four months. That's what that briefing in D.C. was about. Twelve months in Al Asad, Iraq."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, pulling her close for a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"It's okay," she replied, giving him a thin smile. "Mom's rule number ten: don't get mad when the Corps comes first." She quickly wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "That beats your rule twenty."

"Don't let your daughter date a Marine?" he asked. She laughed and nodded.

"So by the time he gets back from Iraq, I'll be about a month away from graduation. I guess it means I won't mind so much anymore when the Navy sends me around the country for my rotations."

"I'll still miss you," he said with a smile. She rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Well, you get me for another six weeks," she said. "Cardiology at NNMC." She frowned as she realized the late hour and that she had to begin her next rotation the next day. "I should get going," she said reluctantly. "I don't want to be tired my first day."

He nodded, remaining where he was seated as she got up, tossing her gloves on the workbench. "It's getting a bit cold for sailing, but if you want to embarrass your old man on the firing range, you know I'm up for it."

She grinned reflexively, about to return with a joke before she remembered her finger and the fact that she won't be doing any shooting for at least a week or two. "We'll have to see what my schedule's like," she said reluctantly. "I'll let you know."

"Okay," he said, noticing she kept her hands in the front pocket of the sweatshirt. Now that he knew she wasn't engaged, he still wondered what she was hiding, but he figured she'd tell him what was going on when she was ready. "Drive safe."

She smiled and nodded. "I love you, Dad."

"Love you too, Kell." _And part of that_, he added silently as he watched her ascend the stairs, _is to protect you, no matter what it takes._


	4. Chapter 4

Special Agent Tony DiNozzo flashed a quick grin to his partner over the desks, who returned it with a smile of her own before returning her gaze to her computer screen, pretending to intently monitor whatever was displayed there.

"What've you got?" Special Agent Jethro Gibbs demanded as he strode toward them, his ever-present coffee in hand and Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann close on his heels.

"Where's Kelly?" DiNozzo blurted out before he could stop himself. Gibbs reached over and slapped the back of his head.

"Unlike some people, the government doesn't pay her to sit around gossiping all day. The case?"

"Staff Sergeant Jonathon McLaughlin," Officer David jumped in, rising from her chair to activate the plasma screen. A picture of McLaughlin's ID appeared.

"Jack," DiNozzo interjected. "Everyone called him 'Jack'. Of course, you knew that already, Boss," he hastily added to Gibbs' glare.

"Born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, parents are—." David cut herself off at the impatient look on Gibbs' face. "I should start with what you do not know," she corrected herself.

"You think, Officer David?" Gibbs asked sarcastically.

"He enlisted in the Army immediately following high school graduation and completed his Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, graduating at the top of his class. He then attended Advanced Individual Training as an Infantryman, given the MOS 11-Bravo, and again graduating at the top of his class. Then it was to Fort Benning, Georgia for Airborne School. He was then assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division," she glanced sideways at Colonel Mann, knowing that she had been deployed with the 82nd Airborne, but the CID officer's face was carefully neutral. "He deployed to Afghanistan with the 3rd Brigade in 2002, and then to Iraq in 2003, returning to the States in the spring of 2004."

"He then applied for Special Forces training," DiNozzo smoothly took over. "He was accepted and made it through all five phases of training and was reclassed as an 18-Bravo, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant. He's been assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group, 3rd Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington since. He's been on several missions, none of which we have the clearance for."

"I'll look into it," Colonel Mann said, her first words since she arrived at NCIS. "What was he doing in Bethesda?"

"His team just got back from a mission," DiNozzo explained. "They had two weeks of block leave. It started Wednesday. His mother still lives in Fairfax; he was staying with her."

"She does not know what he was doing Saturday night when he was killed," David filled in. "He had been spending most of his time at home, sleeping. He left the house around 1630 that afternoon and did not give a time when she should expect his return."

"Did she say anything about him speaking to Ensign Gibbs?" Mann asked, ignoring Gibbs' glare.

"No, ma'am," David said, shaking her head. "She said that her son had not spoken to Ensign Gibbs since they graduated from high school."

"She hasn't," Agent Gibbs confirmed, moving to his own desk.

"Children do not always tell their parents everything they do, Gibbs," David pointed out. "Your daughter is twenty-four years old. That is old enough to speak to people without asking permission."

He rolled his eyes. "Rule nine," he said without elaborating. DiNozzo frowned.

"Never go anywhere without a knife?" he asked.

"Kelly's rule nine," Gibbs elaborated. "There's no need to talk to your ex-boyfriend when you have a current boyfriend."

"Is this rule thing a Gibbs family tradition or something?" DiNozzo asked. Everyone else ignored him. "Doesn't anybody else care?"

"No, Tony," David replied. She turned her attention to Gibbs and Mann. "McGee is checking into Sergeant McLaughlin's email. Maybe that will tell us why he was at Bethesda."

"It already did," Mann said. "Kelly sent him an email asking him to meet her there Saturday night after work."

"Kelly didn't send the email," Gibbs said. Mann sighed, and Ziva guessed that this wasn't the first time they had had this argument.

"Kelly didn't work Saturday," DiNozzo pointed out with a frown, seemingly oblivious to the tension between Gibbs and Mann. "She was on a flight from Hawaii to D.C."

"I know that, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, sounding irritated. "That's just one of the reasons why she didn't write that email. Where's McGee?"

"Subbasement," Ziva said. "He said the computers there are better for this work. I think he was annoyed with Tony."

"Call him and tell him to look into Kelly's Navy account," he ordered, rising from his desk and heading for the elevator without an explanation. "Someone hacked into her email to send that to McLaughlin, and I want to know who."

* * *

"I don't like this," Special Agent McGee said for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes.

"It is not your first time chopping into somebody's email," Officer David pointed out.

"Hacking," DiNozzo corrected automatically, not even looking up from his own computer screen. "Not chopping."

"Whatever," David replied, waving him off.

"Yeah, but this is Kelly Gibbs," McGee replied, ignoring the interplay between the other agents. "I don't usually hack into the emails of people I bought graduation gifts for."

"Speaking of which, what _did_ you get her for graduation?" DiNozzo asked, his head tilted as he studied the younger agent. "I got her an officer's sword. Personalized stainless steel blade, acid-etched with the Navy design, hand polished, with a gold-plated guard, ornate wire-wrapped grip, and genuine calf-leather scabbard. It's the traditional gift for USNA graduates."

"If you got her the 'traditional gift for USNA graduates', what did her father give her?" David asked.

"Custom made left-handed M40A3 sniper rifle," Special Agent Gibbs answered, appearing without any warning. "Figured it would be a lot more useful than a dull sword. McGee?"

"A Tablet PC," the agent answered absently. "I figured that with all the notes she would be taking in med school—." He stopped abruptly at the slap to the back of the head. "Oh," he said. "You were talking about the email. I didn't find anything."

"What do you mean, you didn't find anything?"

"Well, Boss, I don't think she uses this email address much," the agent replied. "All of the emails were related to official business, most of them from school, with one or two from DTS about travel issues. There aren't any personal emails in this account at all, even in the deleted files." He paused. "Does she have another email address that she uses? How does she email you?"

"She doesn't email me, McGee," Gibbs replied, heading out of the bullpen. "She knows better than that. Find me something."

The three watched him walk away silently. "I hate it when he does that," McGee muttered. He sighed, his attention back on the computer. "It's probably a G-mail account," he mused. "Everyone has a G-mail account. That's the problem. There are millions of accounts, and I can't check all of them to see if they happen to belong to Kelly." He stopped talking, his fingers poised above the keyboard. "I bet it's on her Facebook page," he declared, again typing rapidly. Meanwhile, DiNozzo looked over at David.

"Did you follow any of that?" he asked.

"Nope," she replied. "I figured McGee would explain once he found something."

"I found something," he informed them. He turned on the plasma screen, showing a webpage with a picture of Kelly Gibbs in sunglasses and camo, holding an assault rifle, standing next to a similarly attired man. Across the top, under the word "Facebook", it said, "Kelly Gibbs is back in D.C. Dinner, anyone?"

"It's Facebook," he explained at the blank looks on his partners' faces. "I think everyone in any sort of college has a Facebook account. I figured Kelly would have one, too."

"But what does this have to do with Sergeant McLaughlin?" David asked.

"It's the primary mode of communication for teenagers and those in their early twenties," McGee explained. "Just look at her status—she's letting everyone know she's back in town at once. Saves her the trouble of calling or emailing everyone who might care." He caught the amused glance that passed between DiNozzo and David. "My sister's still in college," he said defensively.

"Sure, McGeek," DiNozzo replied. "Care to tell us what this has to do with our case?"

"If Kelly's had any contact with Sergeant McLaughlin in the last couple of years, it'll probably be on here. We just need to find it."

"You mean you need to find it," DiNozzo corrected.

"Right," McGee replied with a sigh.

"This thing has pictures?" DiNozzo said suddenly, pointing at the screen. "Let's see what the Giblet was doing in Hawaii."

"Tony, I don't think this has anything to do with our case—," McGee interjected, but DiNozzo was faster. A picture of Kelly Gibbs wearing a bikini while operating a small sailboat filled the screen, and DiNozzo gave a low wolf-whistle, which was interrupted by a slap to the back of the head.

"What was that for?" he asked, turning to face his boss, who had reappeared without warning.

"You mean looking at pictures of my twenty-four-year-daughter wasn't enough?" Gibbs asked, annoyed. "What are you knuckleheads doing?"

"It's Facebook, Boss," McGee jumped in, closing the picture from Hawaii to reveal Kelly's Facebook profile again. "It's a social network, mostly college kids, although there are a lot of other people—,"

"_You_ have a profile, don't you, McGeek?" DiNozzo asked suddenly with a laugh. "What a McDweeby thing to do." McGee flushed, but didn't say anything.

"I can find out if Kelly had any contact with Sergeant McLaughlin, Boss," McGee said quickly.

"What are you guys doing?" a new voice asked from the elevator. All four turned to see Ensign Kelly Gibbs standing there, a black trenchcoat over her service uniform, her garrison cap in her hand. Seeing the look of confusion on the younger agents' faces, she said, "Dad and I are going out to dinner as soon as I can drag him away from this place. Why are you looking at my Facebook page?"

"Is there something there we shouldn't see?" her father asked pointedly.

"I don't think I need Tony looking at my pictures from Hawaii," she shot back, not missing a beat.

"Too late," Ziva muttered. Kelly turned her glare at DiNozzo, who just grinned.

"Is this a picture of Lt. Dillon in Hawaii?" Gibbs asked suddenly, studying a picture on the screen.

"Well, I guess that secret's out," Kelly muttered. She sighed. "His squadron was doing training exercises in the Pacific for a week."

"You could have told me."

"You didn't ask," she shot back. "I didn't bring it up because I didn't want you to think I was shirking my duties at the hospital to screw my boyfriend."

"Too much information, Kell," Gibbs muttered.

"Kelly, when did you start talking to Sergeant McLaughlin again?" McGee asked, seemingly out of the blue. The medical student frowned.

"I haven't talked to him since high school graduation," she said. "Not that it was a bad break-up, it was just that he was enlisting in the Army and I was heading off to USNA, and we both agreed we weren't in the same place any more. There's not much of a need to talk after that decision."

"Well, it says here that you became friends on Facebook last Wednesday," McGee explained. Ensign Gibbs looked confused for a minute, then laughed.

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "I was on-call at the hospital Tuesday night, which was one of the worst nights of my life. When I got back to the hotel around noon on Wednesday, I just ran through my emails, confirmed a couple of friends requests on Facebook, and passed out until Caiden called me a couple of hours later and woke me up. Then I studied for a couple of hours, and went to bed again at nine so I could wake up at four and be at the hospital at time for rounds at five. I was planning on getting caught up on everything over the weekend, but then with the long flight, spending time with Caiden, and sticking around NCIS while my father's team investigated my ex-boyfriend's murder, it must have slipped my mind." She shrugged. "I'm 'Facebook friends' with a lot of people from high school. Jack being one of them isn't a big deal."

"Did you email him?" Agent Gibbs asked after a pause.

"Email? No," she said, shaking her head. "If I was going to say anything to him, or he anything to me, it would have happened over Facebook, not email." She shrugged. "I don't even know if he knows my G-mail account. I didn't open it until college."

"What about your Navy account?" McGee asked. She shrugged again.

"I only use that for Navy business and school. My G-mail account is for social correspondence, and I use a Yahoo! account for junk mail. Dad, are you ready, or should I just go home and heat a microwave dinner while reading Harrison's Internal Medicine?"


	5. Chapter 5

Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann stared contemplatively out the window as she sipped her coffee, her mind working faster than even she could keep up to. What should have been a simple case was quickly spinning out of control, and she was grasping for anything to hold on to.

"Ma'am?" a voice asked from the threshold of her office door. She turned to face Second Lieutenant Daniel Singer, standing somewhat at attention, a folder in his hand.

"Come in, Lieutenant, have a seat," she offered, returning to her chair. "Is that the autopsy report?"

"Yes, ma'am," the new investigator replied, sitting stiffly in the chair. He handed it over.

"Can you summarize?" Mann asked, seeing the stack of papers inside the folder. The lieutenant nodded.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "The bullet hole is consistent with a .308 full metal jacket. That, in combination with the lack of powder burns around the wound, suggests that he was killed by a sniper."

Mann sighed, even though that wasn't unexpected. She had seen the body at the crime scene and assumed as much. Still, it didn't help her mood any. _So much for ruling Kelly Gibbs out_, she mused. From what she knew about Ensign Gibbs—which was surprisingly little, considering she had been involved with the medical student's father—she couldn't see Kelly intentionally taking someone's life, but if she was going to, a sniper rifle would be her weapon of choice. "What about the bullet?"

Lt. Singer frowned. "We don't have the bullet, ma'am. It wasn't recovered."

_Of course not_, she thought bitterly. She studied the lieutenant for a moment, realizing that he was the same officer grade as Ensign Gibbs. She suddenly felt old; she just broke up with a guy who had a daughter the same age as her subordinates. "Lieutenant, what did you study in college?" she asked.

"Forensic science, ma'am," Singer replied, frowning at the sudden question. "At Eastern Washington University."

"When did you graduate?"

"Um, a little more than a year ago, ma'am," he answered. _Okay, so my subordinates are _younger_ than Ensign Gibbs_, she thought, sighing internally. She smiled suddenly, an idea coming to her.

"How are your interrogation skills, Lieutenant?"

"Ma'am?"

"Ensign Kelly Gibbs," she replied. "The one who sent the email to Sergeant McLaughlin. We're going to have to bring her in for questioning."

"Um, yes, ma'am," Singer replied, slightly uncertain. "When, ma'am?"

"I haven't decided yet," Colonel Mann admitted. "In the meantime, we need that bullet. Give Special Agent Tony DiNozzo at NCIS a call and ask him to join you at the scene. Tell him to bring Officer David."

"Agent DiNozzo and Officer David, ma'am?" Singer asked, confused. Mann nodded.

"He's the senior field agent for the Major Crimes Response Team. They're joining us on this investigation. Oh, and be sure to bring your crime scene photos and the autopsy reports. They'll help you find the bullet, and Agent DiNozzo will want to see them."

"Anything else, ma'am?"

"Yes," Mann answered. "When you find that bullet—and you _will_ find that bullet—take it Abby Sciuto at NCIS. She doesn't have as much of a back-log as our ballistics team, and we need results on this fast." She glanced down at her desk, trying to remember if there was anything she was missing. When nothing came to mind, she looked back up at Lt. Singer. "You're dismissed, Lieutenant."

Singer stood quickly, snapping to attention before exiting Mann's office.

* * *

"They just keep getting younger and younger, don't they?" Agent DiNozzo joked to Officer David as she studied the crime scene photos. She looked up at him to see him studying Lt. Daniel Singer.

"He is the same rank as Ensign Gibbs, no?" she asked, glancing around the crime scene to try to orient herself properly.

"Same _grade_, Ziva," DiNozzo corrected. "He's a second lieutenant and she's an ensign. Those are their ranks, which are both Officer-1 grades, in the Army and Navy, respectively."

She looked back up at him. "It is the same difference," she declared.

"Sure, Ziva," he mocked with a grin. She sighed and went back to studying the photos.

"Hey, Lieutenant," DiNozzo called out. "Where do you think we should start looking?"

The blond-haired second lieutenant looked up sharply, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face. "Well, sir," he said slowly. "Depending on the weight of the cartridge and the rifle used, a .308 full metal jacket has a velocity of 750 to 870 meters per second, with around 3400 Joules of energy. If you take into account the negative acceleration due to the impact with the skull—"

"Whoa," DiNozzo interrupted. "Phys ed major here. If I wanted a physics lecture, I would have brought McGeek instead of Ziva."

"You do not think I am smarter than you, Tony?" David asked, a mock expression of anger on her face.

"That's not what I said, Ziva," he retorted, drawing out the syllables of her name. "I'm saying you're smart enough not to give me scientific mumbo-jumbo when I ask for a simple answer." She nodded her head slightly in acceptance of that explanation before going back to the photos. DiNozzo turned his attention back to the young lieutenant. "The bullet, Boy Genius."

"Sorry, sir," Singer replied. He flipped through his own copies of the photos quickly, trying to come up with an explanation. "He was shot dead-on in the middle of the forehead when he was standing here," he said, moving to where McLaughlin's body was found. "His body was found facing this direction, but it could have turned slightly as he fell or been disturbed by first responders. If we create an angle of ten degrees from this point…" his voice trailed off as he noticed the exasperated look on DiNozzo's face. "I'll get the equipment, sir," he said feebly, heading toward the truck.

"You should go easier on him, Tony," David said with a frown. "He is trying to impress you."

"He's trying too hard," DiNozzo replied. "He's like a new probie—lots of knowledge, no practical application." She only rolled her eyes and moved to help Lt. Singer with the equipment.

They set up a wedge-shaped perimeter and grabbed metal detectors and headphones, ignoring the curious looks from the staff and patients who continued to come and go from the hospital's front doors. After half an hour, their search had yet to yield any results, and they had moved a good deal away from where Sergeant McLaughlin's body was found. "It is getting dim," Officer David commented, more to herself than anyone else.

"Getting _dark_, Ziva," DiNozzo corrected absently. "Full metal jackets can travel quite a long way."

"I know this, Tony," David replied, her voice clipped. "I would be willing to bet that I know a lot more about weapons than you do."

"I don't doubt it," DiNozzo replied. "Just keep looking." The next hour went by silently, interrupted only by stray beeps in the metal detectors, most of which turned out to be lost buttons or loose change. After an hour and a half of searching, it was almost completely dark, and all DiNozzo had to show for his search was two uniform buttons, a man's wedding band, and forty cents in change.

"I think I found something, sir, ma'am," Lt. Singer said suddenly, frozen in front of a tree. He bent down, shining his small Maglite near the bottom of the trunk.

"I think you did, too, Lieutenant," Ziva replied absently, already drawing her knife from her waistband. Singer's eyes went wide as she made short work of the tree trunk.

"Rule nine, Lieutenant," DiNozzo commented to the Army officer. "Never be without your knife."

"Rules, sir?"

"Do not worry about it, Lieutenant," David said as she stood triumphantly, a block of wood with the bullet in hand. "We need to get this to Abby."

"Good job today, buddy," DiNozzo said with a wide grin to Lt. Singer. "We'll take this from here."

"Sir, Colonel Mann asked me to accompany the bullet to the forensics lab," Singer replied. "Where that bullet goes, I go."

DiNozzo and David looked at each other. "Seems Future Ex-Wife Number Three no longer trusts Team Gibbs," DiNozzo commented.

"I do not think she is Future Ex-Wife Number Three any longer, Tony," Ziva replied, beginning to take down the ropes they used as a perimeter.

"Yeah, I wonder what happened with that," Tony mused.

"Maybe Kelly did not want another stair-mother," David answered.

"Step-mother, Ziva, not stair-mother," he corrected. "And I don't think he asks her opinion. If he did, do you think there would be ex-wives numbers one and two?"

"Sir, are you saying Colonel Mann dated our suspect's father?" Singer asked, trying to follow the conversation of the two NCIS investigators. DiNozzo's face went flat.

"No, Singer," he said, his voice suddenly cold. "I'm saying Colonel Mann used to date our boss. Kelly Gibbs had nothing to do with this." He started the truck, effectively ending the conversation.


	6. Chapter 6

"Tony!" Abby Sciuto exclaimed as she caught sight of Special Agent DiNozzo through the glass walls of her lab. She rushed out to give him a large hug, then hugged Ziva as well.

"Um, hi, Abby," DiNozzo replied. "What's up?"

"What, you mean I can't just be excited to see you?" she asked with a slight pout. Her pout turned into a frown when she noticed the young man in an Army Combat Uniform standing back by the truck. "Who's that, and what he doing in my lab?"

"That's Second Lieutenant Daniel Singer," DiNozzo informed her. "He's baby-sitting the bullet we brought you."

"Oh," Abby said, suddenly understanding. "Colonel Mann doesn't trust Team Gibbs anymore, does she?"

"Apparently, she thinks Ensign Gibbs is a suspect," Ziva informed her. Abby's eyes went wide.

"Mini Gibbs? Never!" she declared. She focused a glare in Lt. Singer's direction, who just looked baffled. She turned on one of her high heels and stalked back into the lab. DiNozzo and David followed close behind, with Lt. Singer bringing up the rear.

"Interesting carving job," Abby commented, studying the block of wood she was handed. "This must be Ziva's work."

"It was," Ziva confirmed.

"Very precise," Abby said with a nod. "Very cool." She studied the block for another minute before turning to Ziva, an apologetic expression on her face. "I'm going to have to destroy it to get the bullet, though."

"That is acceptable," David replied, struggling to keep from smiling at the serious expression on the forensic scientist's face.

"I was hoping you'd say that, because, well, if you didn't, I don't know how I'd get the bullet out. Actually, I still don't know exactly how I'm going to get the bullet out. It's very delicate work, you know. I can't just reach in there and grab for it, because if I scratch the sides, it might damage the rifling, which is very important in matching the bullet to the gun that fired it. I think if I start with—,"

"Abby," DiNozzo interrupted. "I don't care how you do it, just get the bullet, okay?"

"Geez, Tony," Abby said with a pout. "There is a major black cloud hanging over you right now. Chill."

DiNozzo rolled his eyes before turning to Ziva. "I'll meet you upstairs," he said. Getting the hint, she nodded, heading for the elevator. Tony turned back to Abby.

"Is there any way to tell if the rifle used was right or left handed?" he asked, his voice low to keep Lt. Singer from hearing. Abby's eyes went wide with disbelief.

"Tony!" she hissed. "You don't seriously think Kelly had anything to do with this!"

"No!" he replied emphatically. "I want to know if the evidence can rule her out."

She thought about this for a moment before nodding her understanding. "I'm sorry, Tony," she said, genuinely apologetic. "I can tell you if the gun used has been used in a crime before, and if it isn't, I can tell you what kind of gun it is, but I can't tell you if it's right or left-handed. The barrels are identical. If I had the brass—"

"We don't," he replied. Abby shrugged.

"Sorry."

He nodded. "Thanks, Abs," he said, giving her a thin smile before heading toward the elevator. If Abby couldn't do it, he'd have to find another way.

* * *

Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann paused at the door, unsure of how to proceed. If it were just a couple of months ago… She pushed that thought aside and put her hand on the doorknob, turning to find it unlocked, like always.

The house was darkened, giving Mann just enough light to see the shapes of the framed photographs on the walls, photographs she knew from memory chronicled the life of a talented young woman. She smiled bitterly, remembering the first time she had noticed them. She had always seen them, but never paid attention until that night about six months ago, the night that she now realizes was the beginning of the end of her relationship with Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

**Six months ago**

_Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann froze in mid-laugh. "What?" Gibbs asked, still grinning as he leaned over her._

_"Did you just hear the door opening?" she asked. He frowned. "Jethro, I think someone is breaking in! If you didn't leave your door unlocked…"_

_He finally rolled off the bed and reached for the nightstand, where he kept his Sig. He began inching toward the bedroom door when the distinctive sound of a door slamming shut was heard. He exhaled deeply, lowering his weapon. "No one is breaking in," he said, tucking the Sig into the waistband of his shorts. _

_"It sure sounded like someone came in," Mann snapped back, still tense._

_"She didn't break in. She has a key," he answered as he stepped out into the hall._

_"Who?" Mann demanded. "One of your ex-wives?" Before he got a chance to answer, a shout from downstairs answered for him._

_"Dad?" Mann's eyes flew open at the address. "Dad!"_

_"I'm coming!" Gibbs called back, now sounding annoyed. He didn't even glance back at Holly before heading down the hall. Mann followed him as far as the threshold of the bedroom before she froze, not sure what she was doing or why. She couldn't miss the exchange that took place just down the hall._

_"I needed a break." The voice sounded young and frantic. "I can't take it anymore! I am locked in that apartment, or that coffee shop, or one of those damn classrooms in that damn school twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, doing nothing but staring at books and PowerPoint presentations, and I can't take it!"_

_"What do you want me to do about it?" Gibbs asked, sounding exhausted. Mann wondered if this was the first time he had heard this tirade, right before she wondered how she didn't even know that Gibbs had a daughter._

_"I don't know!" She sounded close to tears. "I yelled at my roommates and they're not talking to me, and then Caiden called, and we started fighting, and he said that dating me is too much work and it's not worth it, and—" Mann didn't hear the rest, the voice replaced by what sounded like muffled sobbing. She stepped out into the hallway to see Gibbs standing in the living room, his arms around a young woman, her face buried in his chest, an overstuffed black backpack at her feet. Mann had seen Gibbs comforting women before—Abby after a bad day, Ziva when she had gotten overwhelmed by something she had seen—but she had no idea his experience came from times comforting his own daughter. _

_A minute later, she pulled away from her father, allowing Mann to see delicate tear-streaked features and bright blue eyes puffy from crying. "I just needed to get away, maybe spend some time working on the boat," she said, her voice small as she wiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hands._

_"Sure," Gibbs replied, a wry smile on his face as he pulled her head close to kiss her forehead. Mann almost melted at the caring look on his face; she had never seen that expression on his face before._

_The younger Gibbs bent down to pick up her backpack and caught sight of the woman in the hallway, wearing what looked like one of her father's Corps tee-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts. Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh, my God," she muttered. She swung back to her father, her light brown ponytail flying. "You didn't tell me you had someone over! Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed." She turned back toward Mann. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—I should go."_

_"Downstairs, Kelly," Gibbs said, his voice practically an order. Her face flushed slightly, but she did as he said._

_"Maybe I should go," Mann said after she heard the basement door closing behind Kelly. Gibbs rolled his eyes._

_"She just needs some time to cool down," he told her, already heading back toward the bedroom._

_"You never told me you had a daughter," Mann said as she followed. He turned back to face her._

_"It's not exactly a secret," he said, gesturing around them. As if for the first time, she noticed the photographs on the wall. She turned to the one closest to her, finding herself face-to-face with a smiling young woman with bright blue eyes in the uniform of a Naval Academy plebe, Gibbs' arm around her shoulders with a similarly wide smile on his face. He sighed. "Her name is Kelly," he said. "She's a second-year medical student at USUHS, a Navy ensign. She's been studying for her board exams for the last few weeks and I guess the stress is starting to get to her. She says working on the boat calms her down."_

_"Like father, like daughter," Mann muttered._

"Your door was unlocked," Colonel Mann announced, blinking away the memory, standing at the top of the basement stairs.

"Does that surprise you?" Agent Gibbs replied, clearly not surprised to see her standing there. He returned his attention to his boat, seemingly oblivious to her as she descended the stairs.

She ran her hand along one of the wooden planks, musing about how much further along the boat was than the last time she had seen it, only about a month before. "Does it have a name yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," Gibbs replied. "Kelly said she's thinking about it." Mann nodded slightly; she should have figured that Kelly would be the one with the honor of naming the boats. She cleared her throat and reminded herself why she had come in the first place. "Jethro, I—"

"The rifles are over there," he interrupted, gesturing toward the far wall. She turned to see two hard rifle cases, one tan, the other black and covered with stickers from rifle competitions. "I got the ballistics report from Abby, so I figured you'd want these. The A1 is mine, the A3 is Kelly's," he said. "Those four boxes of ammo are all we keep around the house. We buy two boxes of ammo each, each time we shoot and bring it back here to moly coat it."

She nodded as she picked up a box of ammo and frowned slightly. "Match ammo?" she asked.

"That's all we fire, Holly," Gibbs said, sounding slightly exasperated. "It's all that's allowed at competitions, and Kelly never had any need to fire her weapon any other time."

She replaced the box, standing there for a moment without speaking. "I don't need your weapon," she finally said, turning to face him. "The bullet we found has six lands and grooves, consistent with an A3. The A1 has five. They don't match."

"You know your sniper rifles," Gibbs commented, rising to walk toward the weapons. Standing so close to him, Mann caught of a whiff of that familiar Jethro Gibbs scent: sawdust, sweat, and coffee. She closed her eyes for a second and sighed internally, wondering, not for the first time, what had gone wrong.

"I'm a quick study," she finally said, opening her eyes to meet his. He quirked a slight smile before moving to replace his rifle in its drawer, locking it when done. It wasn't until he was back on the other side of the boat that he spoke again.

"Kelly didn't do this, Holly," he said.

She ignored the comment, her eyes still on the remaining rifle case. She had gone with Gibbs to one of Kelly's rifle competitions only seven weeks before, right before Kelly left for Hawaii, only a few weeks before Holly decided to cut her losses. She had known about Gibbs' tendency to ignore everything around him when he was focused on a case, but that was the first time she had seen him so completely focused on another person that he seemed oblivious to everything else. "Does she have any other weapons?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"An MA-1 rifle that she uses for some competitions and her service M9," he replied. "The MA-1 is here, the M9 is at her apartment. Don't worry, she has a concealed carry permit for it," he added dryly. "She also has a ceremonial officer's sword at her apartment, but I didn't know if you considered that a weapon or not." He waited for her to respond to his sarcasm, but she remained silent. "I hope you're looking into other possibilities," he finally said.

That got her attention. "I don't need you to tell me how to do my job, Agent Gibbs," she said, her voice cold.

He rose from his chair again and walked toward her, stopping just in front of her. "Then start doing it, Colonel Mann."


	7. Chapter 7

"McGee," Agent Gibbs commanded as he stepped out of the elevator. The young agent looked up at him expectantly. "I need you to track down the members of Sergeant McLaughlin's team. We need to talk to them about who would want McLaughlin dead."

"Um, Boss?" McGee asked. "I thought Colonel Mann's team was doing that."

"Well, they're not doing it fast enough," he declared, not even breaking stride as he passed his desk and kept walking. His three investigators looked at each other.

"What's that about?" McGee finally asked.

"I don't know, but I'd do what he said if I were you, Probie," DiNozzo replied.

"Don't bother, McGee." All three looked up toward the voice to find NCIS Director Jenny Shepard looking down at them, Lt. Colonel Mann standing silently by her side. "Where's Gibbs?" They all pointed in the direction their boss had gone, none saying anything further. The two women headed for the upstairs elevator without another word.

"Looks like the boss is in trouble," DiNozzo finally remarked.

"You think, Tony?" David replied sarcastically.

* * *

Abby Sciuto glanced up from her microscope to see Special Agent Gibbs in the exact position he had been in for the last five minutes, seated on one of her lab stools, calmly sipping his coffee. He had walked in and sat down without saying a word, just silently watching her work. She was glad she had already fired Kelly Gibbs' M40A3 rifle before he came in; she didn't want to see the look on his face as someone else fired his daughter's gun, especially considering how much she struggled with the left-handed action.

Her head snapped up in surprise a few minutes later at the sound of her lab doors sliding open. She could tell by the looks on Director Shepard's and Colonel Mann's faces that this was not going to be good, and she guessed that it was Gibbs it was not going to be good for.

"Agent Gibbs," Director Shepard said, her voice icily angry. "What are you doing?"

"Drinking coffee?" he replied, holding up the cup as testimony.

"Don't be cute, Jethro," Shepard snapped. "The deal was that your _team_ got to be involved this case, not you. If you can't separate yourself from this, I'm going to have to suspend you until the investigation is over. Your very presence compromises the investigation. If this goes to court and the defense finds out that you were in the lab while Abby was analyzing your daughter's weapon—"

"It wasn't the gun used to kill Sergeant McLaughlin," Abby blurted out. All eyes instantly snapped to her to see her grinning widely. "The bullets don't match. Kelly's gun wasn't involved."

"You're sure?" Director Shepard demanded. Abby's grin turned into a pout.

"Director, you wound me," she said, clasping her hands together over her heart. "Of _course_ I'm sure! I can't believe you have to ask. If you want to check for yourself…" She moved aside from the microscope to allow Director Shepard access.

"I told you Kelly had nothing to do with this," Gibbs said, his voice low.

"We've ruled out the weapon, Jethro, not the suspect," Mann said. "We're still going to have to bring her in for questioning."

"Questioning about what?" he asked. "An email she didn't send? A weapon she didn't fire? What about your other suspects, Colonel? Have you even been looking for other suspects?"

She flushed at the implication that she was doing a poor job, but Director Shepard saved her from having to answer. "You're not involved in this, Gibbs. Let Holly run her investigation. And stop telling your team who and what they should be looking in to."

"I wouldn't have to if it was being done already," he pointed out angrily.

"That's enough, Gibbs," Shepard snapped. "Go home, and don't come back until you can control yourself."

He laughed. "Are you putting me in time-out, Jen?"

"Think of it however you like, Gibbs, but if you're not out of the building in fifteen minutes, I'll have your badge. If you think I'm bluffing, I'd like to see you try it." Her steely gaze told Gibbs that pushing was not the best idea at the moment. He turned and left the lab and didn't look back.

* * *

Lt. Colonel Mann was silent as she followed Director Jenny Shepard back to her office. She could tell the NCIS director was fuming, and to be honest, she wasn't in the best of moods herself. Being called incompetent by a man she thought she loved had a tendency to do that to her.

"So," Shepard finally said as she took a seat behind her desk. "When did he tell you?"

"Tell me?" Mann repeated with a frown.

"That he had a daughter," the director explained.

"Ah," Mann replied, understanding. "Six months ago, and that was only because she showed up at the house while I was there." She paused. "You?"

"Last day we were in Paris," Shepard replied. "August 17, 1999. We had just finished an undercover op. It was stressful, and long, and they extended it a month while we were there. We were in the airport waiting for our flight back to D.C., and he wandered off without a word, like he does, so I went to find us coffee. I found him at a bank of payphones a few gates down from ours. I couldn't hear most what he was saying, but he had this tortured look on his face, like he wished he weren't having that conversation over the phone. He finished by saying, 'We'll be back in a few hours, and then I want to hear all about it. I love you, Kell.'" Shepard took a sip from a bottle of water. "He turned around and saw me standing there, and that's when he explained. Kelly was sixteen and just competed in her first President's National Rifle Match. He was supposed to go with her, but the op was extended and he missed it. She still made President's Hundred—twentieth place."

"At sixteen?" Mann didn't know why she was surprised; after all, the girl was an Olympic bronze medalist at twenty-one. "I've known career snipers who couldn't make President's Hundred."

"Gibbs probably couldn't," Shepard said with a tight smile. "But he doesn't compete in rifle matches."

"He says he can't think of shooting a rifle as a sport," Mann finished with a thin smile of her own. It was a conversation she had had—once—with Gibbs.

Shepard nodded. "And yet that's what he taught his daughter to do." She took another sip of water. "Kelly was even more blunt then than she is now, if you could believe it. I guess four years of the Naval Academy taught her to bite her tongue every once in awhile. The first time we met, after we got back from France, she asked if I was her father's new partner, new girlfriend, or both." She paused. "Kelly had been living with her grandparents—Shannon's parents—in Philadelphia while we were in Paris. After that, he said no more foreign missions, at least until she graduated from high school. He said if he wanted to be shipped off and separated from his daughter, he would have stayed in the Corps."

"She's why he left," Mann stated. She had wondered why he left the Corps when he was so close to having twenty years—and thus full retirement—but never asked. Shepard nodded.

"His deployment with Desert Storm was cut short when Shannon was killed. He took an assignment as the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Scout Sniper Basic Course. When Kelly was twelve, he was going to be deployed to Somalia. Instead, he left the Corps and joined NCIS. When our assignment came up to go to Paris, he tried to get out of it, on account of Kelly, but that didn't work. When we got back, they gave him MCRT. I got a team in the Middle East."

Mann wasn't sure she wanted to know, but she had to ask. "How did it happen? Shannon's death?" She tried asking Gibbs once, but he changed the subject, refusing to talk about it.

Shepard stared at the CID officer for a moment before getting up and crossing to the file cabinet. Without a word, she handed a thin file to Colonel Mann. "You keep a copy of Shannon Gibbs' NIS report?" Mann asked, disbelieving.

"It helps me when I need a reminder of who the man working for me is," Shepard explained, no apology in her voice. Without waiting for Mann to read it for herself, she continued. "Shannon Gibbs was a witness to a homicide and was shot by a Mexican drug dealer while she was driving Kelly home from school. Kelly was hurt pretty badly and was in a coma for a couple of days. She was still in the hospital by the time they tracked down Gibbs in Iraq and got him home." She paused. "The official story is that the drug dealer was shot by a rival, which ended NIS' investigation."

"And the true story?" Mann asked quietly.

"The true story, Colonel, is that Gibbs didn't visit Kelly in the hospital for two days, and nobody was able to get a hold of him," Shepard replied, her voice leaving little question as to what she thought happened in that time. "He was recruited by the NIS agent who investigated Shannon's death, but the last thing he wanted was an assignment aboard an aircraft carrier or anywhere else that would take him away from Kelly. He said that things would be more stable for her if he stayed in the Corps."

"She does seem rather well-adjusted," Mann agreed, then smiled slightly. "As well-adjusted as a competitive riflist, third-year medical student dating a Marine can be."

"Gibbs is a good father," Shepard said, "and Kelly's a good kid. I'm not going to tell you how to run your investigation, but I hope for your sake you're looking into other options."

Mann smiled thinly, beginning to feel like she had inadvertently walked into the middle of the Kelly Gibbs Society. "Don't worry, Director," she replied. "I have it covered."


	8. Chapter 8

Lt. Colonel Mann sighed angrily as she pressed on the brake, sliding to a stop at the red light. She should have known better—she _did_ know better—than to agree to include NCIS on the investigation. As far as the entire lot of them were concerned, Gibbs could do no wrong, and she could see now that Ensign Kelly Gibbs was in the same category. It was no wonder; some of them had known her since she was a teenager. She hit the gas pedal as her phone rang.

"Mann," she answered as she slipped her Bluetooth ear piece on.

"Ma'am, you told me to call once I got hold of Captain Pierce," Second Lieutenant Singer said on the other end. Mann searched her memory for a second before connecting the name with Sergeant McLaughlin's commanding officer.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she replied. "I'm on my way from NCIS right now. I'll be back on base in about fifteen minutes."

* * *

"Captain Pierce," Lt. Colonel Mann said as she strode into the conference room, trying to keep from smirking at the thought of the character from _M*A*S*H_. "I'm sorry about the delay."

"Not a problem, ma'am," the Special Forces captain replied. Even though he was on leave, he was in uniform, likely only on base for this conversation. "I'll do whatever I can to help find out who did this to Sergeant McLaughlin."

"What can you tell me about him, Captain?"

"He was a good weapons sergeant, ma'am, really knew his stuff, knew his way around just about everything that can be used to maim or kill. Pretty smart, too, but you'd know that if you've seen his personnel jacket. He brought up the possibility once about going to warrant officer school. He could have made it, if that's what he wanted."

"How'd he get along with the team?" Mann asked. Pierce shrugged.

"No problems, if that's what you're talking about, ma'am. I wasn't that close to him; I was his CO, after all. I'm sure you know how that goes. McLaughlin always seemed like a pretty private guy, but he spent most of his free time with Staff Sergeant Ben Preston, the engineering sergeant. They went through SF training together a couple of years ago and have been pretty tight since."

"Do you know where I can find Sergeant Preston?"

"Not completely sure, ma'am. The ODA is on leave, and most of my men are used to being out of contact with the rest of the world." He chuckled slightly. "We spend all of our time sleeping on ass-hard—sorry, ma'am—ground and sh—uh, crapping in holes in the ground, and we can't stop bitching about it. Then half of these guys go on leave, and what do they do? They go off camping in the woods, not to be found. And if they don't want to be found, they won't be. We're trained to be invisible."

"Thank you, Captain," Mann said, suppressing the urge to sigh. "Anything you can give us to help would be appreciated."

"I'll see what I can do from here, ma'am," Captain Pierce answered. "Ma'am, I hope you get the guy who did this."

"We're working on it, Captain." She closed the connection and glanced over at Lt. Singer before grabbing her beret and keys from the desk. "Lieutenant, find Sergeant Preston."

"Ma'am?" Singer asked. She didn't pause as she strode toward the door. "Ma'am, how am I supposed to do that?"

"You're an investigator, Lieutenant," she shot back. "Investigate!"

* * *

He hated it when she did that. One minute, DiNozzo was alternating between studying his computer screen and sneaking glances of his partner; the next, he looked up to see her chair empty at the same second he felt her breath on his neck. "Uh, hi, Ziva," he said, wondering what she had in store for him that time.

"Hello, Tony," she replied calmly, her breath still on his neck, her loose hair falling over his shoulder. "Working hard?"

"I was," he replied sweetly. She chuckled in response. Trying frantically to think of something clever to say, DiNozzo looked up and did a double take as he noticed the man stepping out of the elevator. He slowly stood, forcing David to back up. She followed her partner's line of sight, her eyes falling on a young, tall, attractive Marine in his green Class A uniform, the silver rank bars identifying him as a first lieutenant. He was closely followed by a similarly attired middle-aged man with a Gibbs-like presence and the rank of gunnery sergeant. "Lt. Dillon," DiNozzo said, a confused expression on his face. "Why are you here?"

The lieutenant opened his mouth to respond, but the gunnery sergeant was faster. "I was told to escort Lt. Dillon to NCIS for questioning."

"Sir, does this have something to do with Kelly?" Dillon blurted out. His fair skin pinked slightly at speaking out of turn.

"I'll explain everything I know," DiNozzo assured him. He turned back to the gunnery sergeant. "I'll take it from here."

"Aye, sir," the sergeant replied. "You can contact me at the Corps Air Station when he's ready to return to South Carolina."

"I'm sure Agent Gibbs will figure something out," DiNozzo replied, unable to resist. He could tell by the look on the gunny's face that he knew who Dillon's girlfriend was and was able to make the connection. He straightened to attention and turned toward Lt. Dillon.

"Thanks, Gunny," Dillon said, similarly snapping to attention. He relaxed as the non-commissioned officer returned to the elevator, and turned back to DiNozzo. "Okay, Tony," he demanded. "What's going on?"

"I do not believe we have met," Ziva interjected. Dillon turned to her and smiled slightly.

"You must be Officer David," he said. At her surprised expression, he explained, "Kelly likes to talk about her father's team. Lt. Caiden Dillon."

"Ah," she replied. "The Marine boyfriend."

"That would be me," he confirmed with a grin. His blue eyes shifted from David to DiNozzo, his smile fading. "Kelly told me about her ex-boyfriend, but I didn't know she was a suspect."

"We're looking into everything at this point," DiNozzo informed him. Dillon shrugged.

"Well, I'm not going to complain about the free trip up to D.C., as long as I get to see Kelly at some point, but I'm afraid this is going to be a waste of NCIS' time and money. Kelly physically couldn't have done this, and she was with me from the baggage claim on Saturday until I dropped her off at her apartment Sunday afternoon. I had to get back to South Carolina. She said she was going to have dinner with her dad."

"We'll talk about all that later," DiNozzo informed him. "Do you want coffee? I feel like coffee. Let's go get coffee. McGee, Ziva?"

"I'm good, Tony," McGee replied absently. Ziva just shook her head.

"Not so fast, Agent DiNozzo," Lt. Colonel Mann said, walking toward them from the elevator. Dillon snapped to attention at the sight of her rank. "Thank you for coming up, Lieutenant," she said to the pilot.

"Wasn't aware I had a choice, ma'am," he replied. Her lips quirked, smiling slightly at his reply.

"Have they met before?" Ziva whispered to Tony, still standing behind his desk.

"I don't think so," he whispered back. They both returned their attention to the scene in front of them.

"Ma'am, I take it this about Ensign Gibbs," Dillon was saying, his eyes not leaving the colonel's. "Is she here?"

"Not yet," Mann replied. "I was just going to go to Bethesda to pick her up."

Dillon glanced down at his watch. "You might want to wait a few hours, ma'am. They're probably just now getting ready for afternoon rounds."

"That won't be a problem, Lieutenant," Mann informed him.

"It might be," a new voice added. Everyone turned to see Agent Gibbs, two cups of coffee in hand. He handed one to Lt. Dillon without a word. "Her attending outranks you, Holly."

She flushed slightly and rolled her eyes before walking out of the bullpen without another word, leaving Gibbs and his team and Lt. Dillon. "Thanks for the coffee, sir," Dillon finally said. Gibbs rolled his eyes and smacked the pilot in the back of the head. "I should have seen that coming," Dillon muttered. "Kelly told me that you found out about Hawaii."

"What you do in your free time—and Kelly's free time—is your business," Gibbs replied. "That was for mouthing off to a senior officer."

* * *

The fourth time she found herself in the wrong elevator, Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann came very close to calling it a day, going home, pouring herself a drink, and sitting in front of the television. Instead, she gritted her teeth, got off the elevator at the first opportunity, and tried again.

In her defense, Mann hadn't spent much time in hospitals, especially Navy hospitals. Everything was slightly different, and it wasn't just that there was a lot more khaki around than she was accustomed to. When she arrived at NNMC in Bethesda, she asked for directions to the cardiology department, which prompted a series of questions she didn't know how to answer—did she want the cardiac surgery floor, the cardiology floor, the ambulatory cardiology clinic, or the offices of the cardiology staff? After explaining that she was looking for a medical student doing a rotation in cardiology, she was given directions in terms of how many decks up she had to go, how many bulkheads she had to pass to get there, and which corridor she had to walk down. She barely bit back the impulse to tell them that the hospital was not a ship before heading on her way, thankful that she had joined the Army and not the Navy.

She finally found her way to where she needed to be, thanking the nurse who directed her toward the conference room. She stood just inside the doorway, not saying anything as she observed the three junior officers in the room, who, judging by their rank, were all medical students.

Ensign Kelly Gibbs was at a computer, her head tilted down and a smile on her face, an expression Mann had seen on Agent Gibbs a number of times, as she simultaneously copied something from the computer monitor and joked with her peers. Watching her, Mann suddenly realized that this was the first time she had seen Kelly in uniform, and had to admit that it made her look older and more mature than her usual jeans and sweatshirts.

After several minutes of silent observation, Mann cleared her throat, silencing the three students. Two of them looked slightly confused at the presence of an Army lieutenant colonel with a CID patch on her arm, but the third seemed to know what was going on. "Colonel Mann," Ensign Gibbs said with a nod.

"Ensign Gibbs," Mann replied. Kelly sighed.

"I suppose it's time for me to go to CID?"

Mann shook her head. "Actually, we're at NCIS."

Gibbs nodded, clearly not surprised by the news. She glanced down at her watch and sighed. "I know this isn't SOP, but can this wait an hour or so? We're going to start PM rounds in five minutes, and I know my patients better than anyone else. It really wouldn't be good for them if I'm not there." She paused, gauging the expression on Mann's face. "Please, Holly," she said, her voice low. "I need to be here. It'll just be an hour."

Mann sighed, feeling trapped. She didn't want to do anything that would compromise patient care, but she also didn't want to be manipulated by a suspect. Before she opened her mouth to respond, a Navy Lt. Commander wearing a long white coat over his uniform stepped into the room. "Rounds, let's go," he ordered. Gibbs' eyes went from the cardiology fellow to the CID agent before she spoke.

"Commander Mateo? I have an appointment. Can we do my patients first?" She glanced over at Mann, a pleading expression on her face. Mann gave a short nod.

Clearly suspecting that something was going on, Lt. Commander Mateo looked over at the CID agent before sighing. "Fine, Gibbs," he said. "How many more of these appointments do you have, anyway?"

Mann wasn't sure if this meant that Kelly had had other 'appointments' recently, but Kelly answered the question without any further explanation. "This will be it, sir," she promised.

* * *

Lt. Colonel Mann was highly educated, courtesy of the Army, and liked to think that she had a fairly good handle on just about everything related to the military, but she had to admit that she was in way over her head while she was listening to Ensign Kelly Gibbs give her presentations about her patients. She had no idea what serial troponins, lengthened QTs, Mobitz I, amiodorone, or ICDs were, but Kelly rattled off those terms, and others, with confidence, never hesitating about her facts or ideas. When she was asked questions, she had answers. When one of the younger physicians—a Navy lieutenant—teased her about a mispronunciation, she was quick to return the joke. Mann had to admit that if it had been any other situation, she would have been proud of her.

Lt. Commander Mateo and Captain Barr waved them off after Kelly talked about four patients, and she quickly said her good-byes to the team as she followed Mann out of the conference room. Not willing to get lost again, the lieutenant colonel let the ensign lead the way back to the parking garage.

A few minutes into the drive to NCIS, Kelly broke the silence. "You and Dad broke up, didn't you?" There was no accusation in her voice; it was more a statement of fact.

Mann glanced over at her to see Kelly looking back at her, a waiting expression on her face. Part of her was surprised that Kelly didn't know, but the other part knew Jethro Gibbs and understood _why_ Kelly didn't know. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you're leading the investigation," the younger Gibbs said matter-of-factly. Mann had to smile slightly at the logic.

"A little over a week after you left for Hawaii," she admitted. "And before you ask, I'm not talking about why."

"Fair enough," Kelly said with a smile of her own, dropping the subject. Neither spoke during the rest of the drive to NCIS.


	9. Chapter 9

"She is very calm," Officer Ziva David commented, watching Ensign Kelly Gibbs through the two-way mirror into the interrogation room.

"She's a Gibbs," Special Agent Tony DiNozzo replied automatically.

"That is a good point." They continued to watch as the ensign pulled a thin package out of her pocket. "What is she doing?" David asked.

A look of understanding crossed DiNozzo's face as Kelly drew a pre-threaded surgical needle from the package. "Surgical knots."

"Surgical knots?" He nodded, not knowing how to explain even if he wanted to. "She is holding her left hand funny," Ziva commented a moment later. He watched closely before shaking his head.

"No, she's doing one-handed knots," he said. "She's just holding the suture with her left hand, and tying knots with her right." He remembered joking with Jeanne when he found a box of stuff from medical school in her closet. There was a plastic board with two strings, one blue and one white. He asked what it was, and she explained that it was used to practice knots, so he made her demonstrate. She was laughing as she did so, explaining that she decided to go into internal medicine so she _wouldn't_ have to tie knots.

Before Ziva could comment further, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Second Lieutenant Daniel Singer entered. Kelly glanced up and quickly scanned the lieutenant, her expression changing slightly. "Now, that's a Gibbs expression," DiNozzo commented. He knew that look, the confidence in her eyes, and knew that Singer was in trouble.

"Ensign Gibbs?" Singer asked. "Lt. Daniel Singer."

"You can call me Kelly," she said, smiling sweetly. David laughed.

"She will make mixed meat out of him."

"_Minced_ meat, Ziva," DiNozzo corrected. She frowned.

"What is minced meat?"

He had to think about that for a moment before he shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "But that's what Singer will be when Kelly's done with him."

"Do you know why they put mirrors in interrogation rooms, Dan?" Kelly asked, gesturing toward the observation bay. Singer frowned.

"I think 'Lt. Singer' would be more appropriate." Kelly smirked slightly, covering it up well. "And, uh, it's because the interrogations are observed."

Kelly shook her head. "No. I mean, I know the interrogations are observed, but that's not why there are mirrors." She pulled another needle out of the package and again began tying knots. "If they just wanted the record the interrogation, they could do that in a way that wouldn't let the suspect know that he was being taped. The real reason why there's a large mirror is because studies have shown that people are more likely to tell the truth when they're looking at themselves." She shrugged. "Just thought you'd like to know."

"I, uh, I'll keep that in mind," Singer replied, obviously trying to regain control of the interrogation. "Do you think it makes a difference?"

"This is not pretty," DiNozzo muttered. "I almost feel sorry for the guy." Both him and Ziva turned at the sound of the observation bay door opening, revealing Lt. Col. Mann. "Your boy is dying in there, Colonel."

"I know," she replied, not sounding too upset about it. "I'm going to go in a couple of minutes. DiNozzo, Lt. Dillon is in the other interrogation room. Do you want to handle that?"

He frowned. "Are you sure, Colonel? I've taken the guy out for drinks."

She shrugged. "Shouldn't be a problem. I want to finish our interrogations at the same time, so when I call your phone, you have two minutes to wrap it up and get out into the hallway. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, shooting Ziva a quick look, who was watching the interrogation in front of her intently, chuckling at the hapless look on Singer's face.

"Good," Mann said. "I'll see you when we're done."

Before entering the second interrogation room, Tony stopped by the observation bay to see Agent Gibbs calmly sipping his coffee and Agent McGee looking as if he wished he were anywhere else. "Hey, Boss," DiNozzo greeted.

"Holly wants you to interview Dillon," Gibbs stated.

"Uh, yeah, Boss," he replied. Gibbs nodded as he took another drink of coffee.

"You should probably get started, then."

* * *

Ensign Kelly Gibbs smiled up at Lt. Daniel Singer again before returning her attention to her sutures, using the fingers of her right hand to tie knots. As if the gold bar on his ACU's wasn't clue enough, Singer was so new at this that he practically sweated fear. One glance at his empty ring finger told Kelly everything she needed to know about dealing with him. After all, one didn't succeed in medical school without excellent observational skills.

"Do you think I could get some coffee?" she asked, giving him a slightly apologetic smile. "I've been up since 0500 and at work since 0630. I've been on my feet all day, and I'm really tired."

"You can get your coffee once you give us some information," Singer replied, the comment so forced and out of character that Kelly almost lost it all and started laughing. She was saved by the opening of the door, revealing Lt. Colonel Mann, bearing two cups of coffee.

"Ensign Gibbs," she said with a nod, handing one over. "I figured you'd need this."

"Thank you, Colonel," Gibbs replied with a smile.

"Lieutenant," Mann said, turning to Singer, "I've got this from here. I need you to go back to the office and run through those contacts we got earlier."

"Yes, ma'am," Singer replied, too relieved to be out of there to even look her in the eye, much less bring himself to attention. He practically ran from the interrogation room, and Kelly couldn't hold back her grin.

* * *

"How's it going, Lieutenant?" Agent DiNozzo asked as he strode into the interrogation room. Lt. Caiden Dillon shrugged.

"Honestly, sir, I'd rather be in the cockpit listening to my GIB and his really bad movie quotes." He rolled the now-empty coffee cup Agent Gibbs had given him between his hands. DiNozzo remembered Dillon's tendency to fidget; Kelly described it as perpetual ADHD.

"Don't knock the movie quotes," DiNozzo warned. "It's a lost art, really."

Dillon grinned. "I figured you'd say that. I remembered the way you wouldn't shut up about James Bond."

* * *

"Let's start at the beginning," Colonel Mann said, taking the seat at the table across from Kelly.

"The beginning?" Kelly asked, her eyebrows raised. "The beginning of what? Time? My life? My competitive rifle career? USNA? You're going to have to be a little bit more specific."

"How about your break-up with Sergeant McLaughlin?"

"Ah," the medical student said, taking a sip from her coffee. "That's not really a beginning. It's kinda between the end of high school and the beginning of my Navy career."

"Ensign."

"Sorry," she said. "It wasn't so much of a break-up as a long-standing agreement that graduation was the end of the relationship. We started dating halfway through junior year, and I committed to Annapolis fairly early in our senior year. He had some prospects and some scholarship offers, but it really wasn't the time for college for him, so he decided in January or February that he was going to enlist. When he told me that he decided to go Army, I teased him and told him if he really wanted to impress me, he'd join the Corps. We went to prom together, we graduated, we went to the same post-graduation parties, and then that was it."

"That was it?"

Kelly nodded. "We wished each other good luck, and went our separate ways. That was the last time we communicated at all." She shrugged. "After Agent McGee reminded me that we were friends on Facebook—which was after he was killed—I checked out his profile, but that was literally the first I had seen about him since high school graduation."

* * *

"Tell me about Saturday."

Lt. Caiden Dillon glanced up from the now-mangled coffee cup in his hands to look at Agent Tony DiNozzo and sighed. He hazarded a look at the two-way mirror to the observation bay and sighed again, knowing who was behind that glass. "I picked her up at the baggage claim at Dulles," he began. "By the time we got the bags loaded in my car, it was 1745. I made dinner reservations for 2000 just in case her flight was delayed, so we had some time to kill. I had rushed from my briefing at the Pentagon to the airport and was still in uniform and forgot to pack a change of clothes. I wanted to go somewhere to buy something to wear, but she said no."

"Did she have somewhere to be?"

"No," Dillon replied with a shake of her head. "She was teasing me, said that being in uniform all evening was my punishment for not being prepared. Since we still had the time to kill, we went to the Mall."

"I thought you said you weren't allowed to go shopping?"

"No, not a mall, the Mall—Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Smithsonian—the Mall. We got coffee and sat at the World War II Memorial. It's one of her favorite places in the city. Then we went to Ruth's Chris Steak House in Arlington, because it was close to my hotel."

"What hotel?"

"Residence Inn, Pentagon City," Dillon replied, not missing a beat. "After dinner, we played rock, paper, scissors for the check, and she lost, so it went on her credit card."

DiNozzo raised his eyebrows. "You let your girlfriend pay for dinner?" he asked incredulously. "Aren't you a pay grade above her?"

Lt. Dillon shrugged. "We take turns paying. It's not that big of a deal—the money's all going to be in the same account soon anyway." His fair skin turned significantly more pink at that admission, and DiNozzo's eyebrows went even higher.

"Oh?" he asked innocently. "I wasn't aware you and Ensign Gibbs were engaged."

"We're not, sir," Dillon admitted. "Kelly's said a few times that she doesn't see the point in long engagements, and we don't spend a lot of time together right now…" His voice trailed off.

"Is that the real reason, Lieutenant?"

"I haven't asked Agent Gibbs' permission yet," Dillon confessed.

"And why not?"

Dillon glanced back up at him before looking over at the mirror, his face turning redder. "He scares me, sir. I mean, the guy's a former scout sniper and was a master sergeant, and I've known a couple of really mean master sergeants. And he has a small arsenal of rifles in his basement and knows how to cover up any possible crime. What's not to be afraid of?"

* * *

"Does Lt. Dillon know about your relationship with Sergeant McLaughlin?"

Ensign Kelly Gibbs thought about this for a minute before answering. "There is no relationship with _Sergeant_ McLaughlin," she finally said. "But to answer your question, yes, he knows that I dated Jack for about a year and a half of high school. He also knows about the two guys that I somewhat dated while I was at Annapolis before I started dating him. And I know about his former girlfriends."

"That seems very open and honest."

"Rule number one, Colonel: Don't lie, it's not worth trying to explain when they find out."

"And how did Lt. Dillon react when you told him about these former boyfriends?"

Ensign Gibbs laughed. "Colonel, I was twenty-one when Caiden and I started dating. He obviously didn't expect that I had never had a boyfriend. The past has never been an issue between us."

* * *

Agent Tim McGee glanced over at Agent Jethro Gibbs, who somehow managed to obtain a new cup of coffee. Gibbs, for his part, hadn't moved much since the interview began, his eyes locked on the Marine pilot, his expression unwavering. McGee was very glad he wasn't the one in the box at the moment as he returned his attention to Tony DiNozzo and a now very red Caiden Dillon. _Poor guy,_ he mused. _It must be hard to be so fair-skinned that everything makes you blush_. Although he had to admit, it made for an excellent lie-detector, even though Dillon wasn't saying anything the least bit suspicious.

"And after dinner?" DiNozzo prompted.

"We went back to my hotel," Dillon said reluctantly.

"And?"

"Oh, come on!" Dillon exclaimed. "I know Agent Gibbs is on the other side of that mirror."

"And you don't want him to know that you took his only daughter to your hotel and had sex," DiNozzo said bluntly.

"We've already talked about the rifles," Dillon pointed out.

"I could see where Agent Gibbs would get upset about that," DiNozzo continued as if he hadn't heard the pilot. "After all, Kelly is his only child, and with his track record with women, that's not likely to change. And then to hear that a jarhead pilot took his little girl to a hotel room and seduced her—"

"Seduced her?" Dillon interrupted with a laugh. "Oh, you've got to be kidding! I'm not the first guy Kelly's slept with."

"Sergeant McLaughlin beat you to it?"

"She was twenty-one when we started dating," Dillon pointed out. "She was smart and sexy and funny and talented as hell and twenty-one. I never thought I was her first boyfriend, and she never lied about it. Kelly doesn't lie. It's her first rule."

"Doesn't that ever bother you?" DiNozzo asked, now leaning down behind Dillon, his head almost at the younger man's ear. "That you have this smart and sexy and funny and talented girlfriend, but someone else had her first?"

"No," Dillon said honestly. "I never cared about being her first love. I just want to be her last."

* * *

"So you had nothing to do with Sergeant McLaughlin's death?" Lt. Colonel Mann asked for the third time that evening. Ensign Gibbs sighed.

"No," she said, drawing out the syllable. "I was with Caiden all evening, as I'm sure whoever you put him with is finding out."

"You and Caiden," Mann said slowly, as if just figuring something out. "That's pretty serious, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Kelly said softly. "It's 'meet my father', 'spend a week with me in Hawaii', 'I hate the fact that you're being deployed' serious. It's 'happily ever after' serious."

"That 'happily ever after'," Mann repeated. "You'd do anything to protect that, wouldn't you?"

"Just about," Gibbs agreed.

Mann nodded slowly, her hand in her pocket as she dialed DiNozzo's cell phone. "You'd get rid of anyone who put that at risk, wouldn't you?"

Gibbs sighed. "Nobody put that at risk," she said. "Not Jack, not anybody. I don't know him now, but the Jack I knew back then would be happy for me. He wouldn't do anything to jeopardize my relationship with Caiden."

"If you say so," Mann replied cryptically, eliciting another sigh from Kelly. The colonel walked over to the door and pulled it open. "It's getting late. Let's call it a night."

* * *

"One last question, Lieutenant," DiNozzo said as he felt the vibration of his cell phone. _Two minutes_, he reminded himself.

"Shoot."

"Interesting choice of words," the NCIS agent said thoughtfully, then shook that thought aside. "You keep insisting that Kelly couldn't have done this because you were with her night. How do I know that you're not covering for her, or she's not covering for you?"

Dillon laughed at the words. "Well, I don't know about the first one, but as far as the second, anyone from Annapolis or Corps can tell you, I am no sniper. Anything further than three hundred feet on any weapon but a fighter jet, I consider myself lucky if my bullet ends up in the same area code as my target."

DiNozzo couldn't help but smile at the explanation. "Okay, Lieutenant, that's all," he said, gesturing for the door. "You can go."

Lt. Dillon looked askance at him for a second, then rose and headed for the door.

* * *

Special Agent Jethro Gibbs stepped out of the observation bay just in time to his daughter's eyes fall on Lt. Caiden Dillon. "Caiden," she said, her voice laced with obvious relief. She all but launched herself at the Marine pilot, who looked just as relieved to see her.

"Caiden," Agent Gibbs said after a moment. The lieutenant reluctantly disengaged himself from his girlfriend to face the NCIS agent. "It's not my permission you should be afraid of asking for." Before either could respond, Gibbs smacked both Caiden and Kelly in the back of the head.

"What was that for?" Kelly asked, indignant.

"You're both in uniform," Gibbs pointed out as he headed down the hallway. "Knock it off with the public displays of affection!"


	10. Chapter 10

They had reconvened in front of Agent Gibbs' desk, Lt. Dillon and Ensign Gibbs standing close to each other, but never actually touching, their military bearing again intact. "It's getting late," Ensign Gibbs finally announced. "And I still have work tomorrow. Can someone give us a ride to NNMC so we can get my car and go home?"

"Us?" Agent Gibbs echoed.

"Yes, us," Kelly repeated. "Me and Caiden." She rolled her eyes at her father. "He's staying at my place until it's time for him to go back to South Carolina." Her tone brokered no argument.

"No, he's not," Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann interjected as she walked toward them. "Ensign Gibbs, you're officially under investigation. That means no contact unsupervised by a CID or NCIS agent."

"You can't do that!" Kelly exclaimed, her eyes wide. "She can't do that!" she repeated, directing that at her father. She turned back to Mann. "Putting me under investigation will ruin my career before it even begins. I'm not going to be able to match for a surgical residency position and I'll be spending my entire career as a general medical officer aboard some aircraft carrier in the Bering Straight, and—"

"Kelly," her father interrupted forcefully. "It's just an investigation. We both know nothing will come of it. Your career will be fine."

"No, it won't," she said, her eyes still furious. "It will have to be reported to the USUHS administration and the Office of the Navy Surgeon General. I'll have to disclose it on my residency applications. They don't just ask if I've been _convicted_ of a crime, but _investigated_ for a crime. Regardless of the outcome, it doesn't look too good to have _that_ on my permanent record." She took a deep breath. "I'm medical corps. There should _never_ be any suspicion of me discharging a weapon under unsanctioned circumstances."

"I can't make an exception just because of your branch," Mann said without apology.

"This isn't about my branch, and—"

"Kelly!" her father exclaimed angrily. "You are speaking to a superior officer. Show some respect." Like her father, _that_ was a lesson that took her awhile to fully learn, and the longer she spent in the medical corps, the more he noticed her slipping.

Ensign Gibbs' face flushed at the reprimand. "I'm sorry, ma'am," she ground out between gritted teeth.

"DiNozzo," Agent Gibbs called out. "Take Lt. Dillon to your place for the night."

"On it, Boss," the agent replied, opening his desk drawer to retrieve his weapon for the night.

"Kelly will stay at my house," Gibbs continued, his eyes daring Mann to protest. To his surprise, it wasn't her that spoke up.

"No," Ensign Gibbs said forcefully. "Not your place. You can have me stay in an on-call room at the hospital or a holding cell here at NCIS, but I'm not going to Fairfax. It's too far from the hospital. I have to be in at 0630 tomorrow. I'd have to get up before four to make it on time."

"She can stay with me," Officer Ziva David offered. Everyone turned to face her with surprised expressions. Ziva never seemed like the type to open her home to anyone. The Mossad officer shrugged. "My apartment is in Silver Spring. It is only ten minutes from Bethesda."

"Should be closer to twenty," DiNozzo muttered under his breath. Ziva ignored him.

"I am up early in the morning anyway. It would not be a problem."

Gibbs nodded. "Okay. Kelly, you're with Ziva. DiNozzo, take Lt. Dillon to my place."

"Your place, Boss?"

"Did I not annunciate properly?" Gibbs asked sarcastically. "And don't leave until I get there."

"Right, Boss." He gestured for Dillon to follow and headed for the elevator. Kelly took the time for one more glare at both her father and Lt. Colonel Mann before her and Ziva followed them.

* * *

Agent Gibbs waited until he knew his agents were out of the building before standing from his chair. "My office, now," he demanded, not even looking at Lt. Colonel Mann as he purposefully strode toward the elevator. She followed without complaint.

As expected, he hit the emergency stop as soon as the doors slid closed. She waited for him to speak; to her surprise, the question that came out of his mouth was not the one she was expecting. "What happened between us, Holly?"

She was so floored by the question that it took her a moment to find her voice. "You're a hard man to get to know, Jethro."

A look of realization crossed his face. "You're still upset that I didn't tell you about Kelly."

"Two months, Gibbs!" she exclaimed. "We were dating for two months before you said anything, and the only reason you did then was that you were caught."

"What did you want me to do, Holly? Tell stories about cute things my daughter did?"

"It would have been a start."

He rolled his eyes. "That would have gone over well," he said sarcastically. "'Chasing Sharif through this train station reminds me of the time my daughter poisoned $100,000 and distributed it in a massive bio-terrorism plot.' It wasn't exactly the best time for getting to know each other's pasts."

"You didn't even try."

He sighed. "I know you're not happy with me. Just, don't take it out on Kelly."

"She's not a kid anymore, Jethro," Mann reminded him. "You can't take care of her forever."

He reached over and turned the elevator back on. "She's still my daughter."

* * *

"How was having the Gibblet over?" Special Agent Tony DiNozzo asked his partner the next morning as he tossed his bag over his desk. Officer Ziva David glanced up and shrugged.

"She is upset," she reported. "Which is not surprising after what happened yesterday. How was Lt. Dillon?"

"Didn't talk much on the drive over to Gibbs' house," Tony said. "I think he's mad at me about some of things I said in interrogation."

"You were doing your job. He will understand that," Ziva assured him. He shrugged.

"If not, I guess I don't have to worry about buying a wedding gift." He glanced over at the third desk. "Probie! What are you doing?"

Special Agent McGee glanced up from his computer before returning his attention to the monitor. "Checking Facebook again," he said. "Something Lt. Dillon said didn't sound quite right. I'm trying to figure it out."

DiNozzo turned to David, who only shrugged. "Sure, McGoogle," he said. Anything further he might have said left his mind as Lt. Colonel Mann entered the bullpen.

"How's Ensign Gibbs?" she asked David.

"As well as could be expected, Colonel," Ziva replied. "I dropped her off at NNMC this morning and informed her resident that she is not to be left without supervision all day. Someone will call me when it is time for to be picked up."

The CID agent nodded. "And Lt. Dillon?" she asked DiNozzo.

"He's with me," Special Agent Gibbs said as he entered the bullpen, Lt. Caiden Dillon in tow. "What've we got?"

"Agent Gibbs," she said in a warning tone.

"I was talking to my team," he informed her. When no one responded, she rolled her eyes.

"We contacted Sergeant McLaughlin's CO yesterday, and he provided us with the contact information and next of kin of their team, including McLaughlin's best friend. Lt. Singer is tracking him down now."

"Good," he said. "Let me know when you find anything." Just as he finished speaking, Mann's cell phone rang. She raised her eyebrows as she answered, heading over to the window for more privacy.

She came back a moment later. "That was Lt. Singer. He spoke to Sergeant Preston's mother. She said he took his leave alone in the woods and left only a set of coordinates in case he needed to be found in an emergency." She rattled them off, earning a frown from Ziva.

"That is not in the woods," she stated. DiNozzo thought about it for a moment before grinning.

"That sounds like the Caribbean," he agreed.

"McGee," Gibbs ordered.

"On it, Boss," the agent replied. A map appeared on the plasma screen. "Tony's right. It's the Caribbean. St. Thomas."

"Pick him up," Gibbs said.

"No," Mann interrupted. "He's a Special Forces soldier. I don't want to cut his leave short." Gibbs turned to glare at her, but was caught off-guard by her next comment. "DiNozzo, David, go down and talk with him."


	11. Chapter 11

"I would have preferred the Gulf Stream," DiNozzo complained as Ziva finally met up with him outside customs. "And we need to get you an American passport. These customs lines are killing me."

"Killing you, Tony?" David mocked. "You were not the one questioned about your purposes in St. Thomas." He only grinned in response.

"We should get going," he said. "We only have a few more hours until sunset." McGee had arranged for a car to be waiting at the airport to take them to Sergeant Preston's resort.

The resort was everything Tony expected a St. Thomas resort to be—bright blue skies, even bluer ocean, perfect white sandy beaches, and more bikinis than his college spring break trips. "I love the Caribbean," he said, a wide grin on his face.

"We have a mission, Tony," David reminded him. "Where would we find Sergeant Preston?"

"The beach," DiNozzo said, not missing a beat. At Ziva's questioning glance, he said, "The guy spends all of time around eleven other guys. He's going to be on the beach."

Understanding what he was saying, a slow smile appeared on Ziva's face. "To the beach, then," she said.

They recognized Preston from his picture, as well as his short military haircut and sculpted physique. He was lounging on a plastic chair, three scantily clad women around him. "I think I can handle this," Ziva said. Without explanation, she took off her tee-shirt, revealing a bikini top underneath.

Tony blinked once in surprise before leering at his partner. "You know, a lot of these Caribbean beaches are topless."

"Do not try your luck, Tony," she replied, handing him the shirt and grabbing a nearby pitcher of drinks.

"Refill?" Ziva asked sweetly as she approached Sergeant Preston. He looked up her before his eyes swept her body slowly, a sly smile appearing on his face. He held up his nearly-full glass in response.

"Why don't you join me?" he invited, scooting over on the lounge and patting the few inches of free space he created.

"That sounds like a great idea," DiNozzo said, his credentials out. "Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, NCIS. This is my partner, Ziva David. We need to talk to you."

"NCIS?" Preston asked with a frown. "I don't understand."

"Your friend Jack McLaughlin was killed at Bethesda Naval Hospital on Saturday," DiNozzo explained.

"Aw, fuck," the engineering sergeant managed. "We get back from hunting terrorists in the goddamn sandbox for him to bite it at a hospital?"

"It's a little bit more complicated than that," DiNozzo said. "That's why we needed to talk to you."

"Wait," Preston said, lowering his sunglasses to reveal dark brown eyes. "You don't think I had anything to do with this, do you? I've been here since Wednesday evening." He rubbed his face with his hand. "Fuck. I told Jack he should come along, but he said he owed it to his mother to spend some time with her during leave."

"Had Sergeant McLaughlin ever talked about a Kelly Gibbs?" David asked, hoping to get down to business and get Preston's thoughts off his friend's death.

To her surprise, Preston laughed, his eyes traveling down Ziva's chest. "Ma'am, Jack's talked about a lot of girls over the years. There's no way I can keep track."

"Hey," DiNozzo said, smacking Preston in the back of the head. "Stop staring at my partner's chest and pay attention. This wasn't one of his girls from leave. She was his high school girlfriend."

A sudden look of recognition crossed the sergeant's face and he straightened in his seat. "The Olympic riflist?"

DiNozzo and Ziva shared a look. "So you have heard of her?" David said.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "Jack and I went through SF training together. We had leave between phases right around the time of the Olympics. We were going to try to go to Athens to watch, but it was too much trouble to go OCONUS, so we went to New York instead. We found a bar that covered all sports, including rifle. He told me that one of the athletes was his high school girlfriend. I thought he was shitting me, but they did this short bio on her and I realized that he was legit."

"He ever mention her again?"

"Yeah," Preston said with a nod. "We've been doing these missions the last six months or so with some SEALs and Recons and scout snipers, and we've noticed that things have been a little fucked up when they're around. Jack and I were starting to think some of these guys are the on the take. He said this Kelly girl was the daughter of a big-shot NCIS agent. He wanted to talk to her and see if she would talk to her father and do some investigating." He shook his head. "I told him it was a bad idea."

"What about your CO? Or CID?" David asked. "Did you consider speaking to them about this?"

"No, ma'am," he said automatically. He hesitated. "SF guys aren't exactly best friends with CID. I assumed NCIS wouldn't be any different. That's why I told Jack to drop it."

"But he didn't listen."

"No, sir, he didn't," Preston confirmed. "That's one of the reasons I tried to talk him into coming here, and one of the reasons I think he wanted to go to Virginia. He told me it was the right thing to do. He looked her up on Facebook and emailed her from the airport on Wednesday. He said he'd let me know how it went. When I hadn't heard from him, I assumed he decided not to go through with it. I was a bit glad, to be honest. Some of those guys are scary shit." He gave a quick grin that didn't reach his eyes. "And you know if a green beret is saying it, it's gotta be true."

"Anything else we need to know about this?" DiNozzo asked. Preston hesitated.

"Do you think these guys had something to do with Jack being killed?"

"What do you think, Sergeant?"

"Like I said, they're scary shit," he repeated. "Yeah, I'd believe it." He hesitated again. "Jack was a really good guy, as good as they come. Hell of a lot better than the rest of us. I want to help you find who did this to him."

DiNozzo pulled out the small notebook he kept in his pocket and handed Preston a pen. "Names, Sergeant. As many as you can think of."

After checking in with Lt. Col. Mann over the phone and giving her the names Sergeant Preston gave them, DiNozzo turned back to his partner and grinned. "So, Ziva," he said, stretching out the syllables. "We still have a few hours until our flight. What do you say we hit the beach, grab a couple of pina coladas and watch the sunset?"

She looked at him for a moment before rolling her eyes. "Give me my shirt, Tony."

* * *

Special Agent Tim McGee hit the desk excitedly. "Whoa, McGee," Abby Sciuto said, surprised. "What was that for?"

"I got it!" he exclaimed. "Kelly didn't do anything!"

"Well, duh, McGee," Abby replied, rolling her eyes. "That's what I've been telling you all along! There's no way Mini Gibbs had anything to do with this. She's, well, Mini Gibbs. She's like, the least killer-type person on Earth."

"Yeah, but now we have proof." He put his computer monitor up on the lab's plasma screen.

"Kelly's Facebook page?" Abby asked, making a face. "What does that prove?"

"Lt. Dillon said something yesterday that didn't sound quite right," he explained. "He said, 'Kelly physically couldn't have done this, _and_ she was with me until Sunday.' As if they were two separate things: that she physically couldn't have done it, and they were together, not that she physically couldn't have done it _because_ they were together." He took a deep breath, trying to organize his thoughts. "So I figured if something was up, it would be on Facebook. I checked through her account, and nothing jumped out at me. She had her pictures from Hawaii, and—"

"Oh! I want to see her pictures from Hawaii!" Abby exclaimed, pushing McGee away from the keyboard. "She went shooting with Caiden at the Scout Sniper School! That is so cool!" She clicked on a picture of Kelly and Caiden, both in camouflage uniforms and Oakley shooting sunglasses, in prone shooting positions behind high-powered sniper rifles. "Look at these comments!"

"Abby—"

"'Teaching Caiden how it's done.' That was Kelly's comment. Then Nichole Fios, whoever that is, said 'You guys look like a Oakley Standard Issue ad!' And then there's this picture of her in the backseat of Caiden's plane—'Gibbs as the GIB.' And—"

"Abby!" McGee interrupted. "You can look at her pictures later. What I wanted to show you was this."

"'The Kelly Gibbs Fan Club'?" Abby read the group's name. Her eyebrows rose at the picture: Kelly Gibbs on the medal stand at the Athens Olympics, a wreath on her head, a wide grin on her face, and a bronze medal around her neck.

"It started right after the Olympics," McGee explained. Abby read the group's description silently: 'She's the third best female riflist in the world, got a 36 on her MCATs, builds boats by hand, and somehow manages to keep her half of the room clean. Three cheers for Midshipman Kelly Gibbs!'

"I'm guessing that was her roommate," Abby commented.

"Right," McGee said. "Anyway, it changed from a USNA joke to a real Kelly Gibbs fan club, if you can believe that. Most of the members are high school kids from the Potomac High School Rifle League, which was her shooting league when she was in high school. I found this event on the group's calendar."

"'Shooting demonstration, pointers, and equipment hints,'" Abby read.

"Next Saturday," McGee continued. "However, Kelly posted this about a week ago."

"'Hey, guys, sorry about this, but we're going to have to postpone the shooting demonstration,'" Abby read aloud. "'Due to an unfortunate injury to my trigger finger last night while on-call, I'm not going to be able to do any shooting for a couple of weeks. Don't worry, nothing's permanent, my finger and I will be fine. We'll still have the shooting clinic and equipment workshop just as planned.'" She turned to McGee, her eyes wide. "Oh my God, I can't believe I didn't remember!"

"Didn't remember what, Abby?"

"I knew that! Well, not that she was going to be missing a shooting demonstration or that she was still planning on doing the clinic or equipment workshop, but I knew that she couldn't shoot! When she came in on Sunday, she had her finger in a splint and showed me the stitches and everything. She said one of the residents at the hospital cut her finger during surgery and that she had to go to the hand surgeon to get it taken care of." McGee grabbed Abby by the arm and began dragging her toward the elevator. "Oww! McGee! What are you doing? Where are we going?"

"Upstairs," he said grimly. "You're going to tell all of that to Colonel Mann, and then you're going to explain to Gibbs why you didn't bring it up sooner."


	12. Chapter 12

Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann thanked the Tripler hand surgeon before hanging up the phone, unable to meet the eyes of the NCIS team around her. "That was Colonel Lund," she said. "He confirmed Abby's story. He was called in from home around 0330 last Wednesday morning. Ensign Gibbs' finger was cut by one of the residents during an emergency cesarean section. Normally, this is something that a third year medical student could handle, but considering the importance of Kelly's left index finger, he came in to repair it himself and gave her instructions on caring for the wound and her rehabilitation. She was scheduled to have the stitches removed Wednesday, which must have been the appointment Commander Mateo was referring to." Mann paused to recollect her thoughts. "Lund said she was a very nice and respectful officer and made the experience as enjoyable as a simple repair at 0400 could be."

"Why didn't she say anything?" Agent McGee mused. Gibbs fixed him with a cold look.

"Someday, when you have kids, you won't have to ask." He turned to Colonel Mann. "Now will you believe that my daughter had nothing to do with this, or are you going to start theorizing that she used her right hand?" Mann flushed.

"I'm not an idiot, Gibbs," she said stiffly.

"You've kinda been acting like one for the past week," he shot back. "Where are we on those names DiNozzo and Ziva got us?"

"Three were Navy SEALs," Agent McGee answered. "They've been out on a mission for the past two weeks."

"That sounds like an alibi if I've ever heard one," Abby joked. Gibbs gave her a stern look. "I'll be down in my lab," she said quickly. Gibbs turned his attention back to McGee.

"That leaves the other four, three Recon Marines and one Scout Sniper. The Recons are out of 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company in Mobile, Alabama. The Company is currently on-base; we're still checking on the specifics of these three Marines. The sniper is on leave and scheduled to return to duty on Monday. We're checking all four names against flight records both CONUS and OCONUS."

"Is CID doing anything?" Gibbs asked dryly.

"Lt. Singer is extrapolating the location of the sniper's nest," Colonel Mann informed him. He looked at her, aghast.

"Is there a reason why this hasn't been done already?" She just flushed. Gibbs turned his attention back to McGee.

"Focus your attention on the sniper," he ordered, heading for the elevator.

"Um, any particular reason why, Boss?" McGee asked. The supervisory agent fixed him with a cold luck.

"Because Marine scout snipers use M40A3s." He stepped into the elevator without another word.

* * *

Officer Ziva David glanced at her watch before giving an aggravated sigh. "Got a hot date, Ziva?" Agent DiNozzo asked from his desk.

"It is 1830," she replied. "And Lt. Lewis has not called me."

"Lt. Lewis?"

"The occupant on Kelly's team at the hospital," she explained. He looked confused for a second, but then a look of understanding crossed his face.

"The _resident_," he corrected. "Why is he calling you?"

Ziva smirked slightly. "Are you jealous, Tony?"

"No," he denied.

"That is good," she answered, "since Lt. Lewis is a woman. _She_ is supposed to call when it is time for me to pick up Kelly from the hospital. She usually calls around 1730."

"Maybe you should call," he suggested. "If something doesn't seem right, you should check it out."

She glowered slightly at him. "I do not need you to tell me how to do my job, Tony." She paused for a second. "I will call." DiNozzo had to fight to keep from grinning.

Officer David paged the team's resident, who called back less than a minute later. After a short conversation, she slammed down the receiver and jumped to her feet, grabbing her Sig. "What?" Tony asked, his eyes wide.

"She left over an hour ago," Ziva replied. "Lt. Lewis said that she was picked up by a Marine. She thought he was sent by us." She began heading for the elevator.

"What are you planning on doing, Ziva?" Gibbs called out, halting her in her tracks. "Searching the entire District? DiNozzo, check Dillon."

Tony practically ran to the cubicle Lt. Dillon had been stationed in for the last couple of days, knowing what he would find. "Shit!" he exclaimed. "He's gone, Boss."

"Where'd they go?" McGee asked. He flushed when he realized how obvious the question was. "Your place, Boss?"

"Kelly mentioned that she finds working on the boat relaxing," Ziva offered.

"Too obvious," Gibbs replied, shaking his head.

DiNozzo frowned in thought, remembering. _It's her favorite place in the city._ "I know where they are, Boss."


	13. Chapter 13

"Thank you for your service, Ensign." Ensign Kelly Gibbs smiled politely at the older man, a World War II veteran, judging by the baseball cap on his head.

"Thank you," she replied. "What did you do in the war, sir?"

"Oh, don't call me sir," he said with a laugh. "I used to _work_ for a living!" She smiled thinly in reply. "I was a corpsman, spent most of my time hanging out with Marines in the Pacific. Did you have family that served?"

"Just about all of them," she replied, smiling again.

"Kell," Lt. Caiden Dillon interrupted, handing her a cup of coffee. She smiled at him.

"Thanks," she replied softly, lacing the fingers of her free hand into his. She turned back to the WWII vet and smiled. "It was nice talking to you."

"Good luck to you, Ensign, Lieutenant," he replied. She smiled again and let Caiden lead her to the low step on the northern end of the World War II Memorial. They both sat, silently sipping their coffee.

"How has staying with Dad been?" Kelly finally asked, just trying to keep her mind from the chaos her life has become.

"He hasn't shot me yet, if that's what you're asking," Caiden replied dryly. "And it's nice to be reacquainted with some of my clothes." Kelly smiled unwillingly at his words, thinking about his water polo sweatshirt, his Class of 2005 sweatshirt, his USNA Ike jacket, and the small collection of USMC tee-shirts. "Kell—"

"Don't," she warned, putting her hand over his mouth. "Don't say it."

"Kelly," he sighed. "Why didn't you say anything about your finger? If they had known you couldn't shoot--"

She glared briefly at him before sighing in defeat. "I know," she admitted. "I know I should have told them, should have told Dad. I didn't want him to know at first, and then when all this stuff with Jack happened, I just forgot. I didn't think I was actually a suspect until they dragged me from the hospital and stuck me in the interrogation room, and then I was so focused on the investigation and my career--" She sighed again. "I'm sorry."

He didn't know what to tell her: that he was uncomfortable with the idea that she was now a fugitive and he knowingly aided and abetted her escape, that he understood what she was going through, that it wasn't her fault. Instead, he simply said, "I love you, Kelly Gibbs. God knows _why_, but I do."

She smiled at his unusual statement of endearment and kissed him lightly. "I love you, too, Caiden," she said softly. He put his arm over her shoulder and she leaned in to kiss him again. "If Dad were here, we'd both be getting smacked," she said, referring to their public display of affection while both were still in uniform.

"Would that be before or after he arrested us?" Dillon asked. She sighed again, slumping over slightly against him.

"Our careers could be over."

"Well, at least we'll get our dishonorable discharges together," he joked. "Everything will work out, Kelly. I promise."

* * *

It was probably the first time the team had ever knowingly handed Ziva the keys and told her to drive fast, but they knew if they needed to get somewhere quickly, she was the one who could deliver.

They were still a few miles away from the Mall when Gibbs' cell phone rang. "Gibbs," he barked into the phone, bracing himself as Ziva took another turn tighter than necessary.

"Lt. Singer identified the sniper's nest," Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann said, not wasting times with pleasantries. "He also figured out why we couldn't find it before."

"Get to the point, Holly."

"He fired from the parking lot," she concluded. "Probably a van, something that would blend in anywhere and wouldn't get any second looks if someone saw that there was a person on the top."

He glanced out the window just as a news van drove by, antennas and satellites adorning the roof. With a quick glance, it wouldn't be too difficult to mistake a sniper's rifle for such equipment. "A news van."

"I guess that's a possibility," Mann said after a pause. "Where _are_ you?"

"On our way to the World War II Memorial," Gibbs replied grimly.

"Sight-seeing?" Mann asked, not following the conversation completely. Gibbs snorted.

"It appears my daughter is more devious than I gave her credit for," he said grimly. "Lt. Dillon snuck off the Navy Yard and picked her up from the hospital without us knowing. We think that's were they went."

Mann hesitated, processing this information with what she knew. "Gibbs, we got a hit on the airline records. Our scout sniper, Corporal Mitchell, landed at Reagan yesterday."

In seconds, Gibbs' mind went to the worst possible scenario. "Ziva, step on it!" he shouted. "Holly, they're after her. Get a team to the Mall and contact DCPD, now!"

"'They?'" Mann repeated.

"Snipers don't work alone."

* * *

Corporal Ray Mitchell glanced up toward the driver's seat of the van as he assembled his rifle and frowned. His spotter, Lance Corporal Paul King, had been quiet—unnaturally quiet. Usually he couldn't get the guy to shut up, but ever since they landed in D.C. the day before, getting him to speak was like pulling teeth.

"You sure she's there?" he asked for the third time, more to fill the silence than get any answer. King glanced in the rearview mirror.

"Her cell phone is," he answered, the same response he had given the other two times. He returned his attention to the road, not saying anything else. Mitchell rolled his eyes and went back to his rifle.

"This isn't right," King said a moment later, breaking the silence. "Shit, man, she's a POG doctor."

"We don't know what that bastard McLaughlin told her," Mitchell replied, the same answer he had given the other times King raised his objections to their mission. "And whether she's a grunt or not doesn't matter." King didn't respond as he parked the van and pulled out his binoculars.

"She's there."

* * *

In a city like Washington, D.C., one white news van with antennas and bright stickers advertising a station was never anything to be noticed; in fact, there were three in the blocks immediately surrounding the National Mall. Only one, however, was complete with a sniper rifle and a Marine dressed as a tech. "Stop!" Gibbs shouted, his door already swinging open. "Get that van!" he finished as he slammed the door closed behind him.

His Sig was already out and ready, even though he knew from that distance that a slingshot would probably be more effective. His eyes locked on the makeshift sniper nest, he ran toward the van. When the sniper adopted a familiar posture over his weapon, he knew he was too late. "Freeze!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "NCIS!" He heard the report of the M40A3 in the same second he noticed two uniformed figures six hundred feet away at the World War II Memorial fall to the ground.

* * *

Lt. Caiden Dillon opened his mouth to point out that it was getting dark and it was probably time for them to turn themselves into NCIS when everything changed. He couldn't say it was something he heard, or something he felt, but he knew that something was wrong. "Get down!" he shouted as he pushed Kelly to the ground. The last thing he was able to process was the hissing sound of a .308 full metal jacket coming for his head.

* * *

"Kelly!" Agent Gibbs yelled, the anguish evident in his voice for anyone to hear. He hazarded a glance at that white van to see the sniper ducking back into the van, the wheels beginning to turn as it pulled away from the curb. For a split second, he didn't know if he should chase after it or not. Deciding in that instant that Ziva was more than capable of using her car to stop another--she had proven _that _already--he sprinted toward the World War II Memorial.

He arrived to find his daughter on the cold granite ground, mostly covered by Lt. Dillon. "Kelly!" he shouted again, his heart simultaneously feeling like it would burst from the exertion of the run and stop from fear that he wasn't fast enough. In that instant, a million possibilities and scenarios ran through his mind, each more frightening than the last. Then he saw her eyes open and heard the low groan from her throat, and just about died from relief.

"My head," she moaned. "What?—Caiden!" Her eyes suddenly focused, she tightened her grip on her boyfriend's elbows. "Caiden!"

"Oww," he managed. "Kell, that hurts." He opened his eyes to find himself inches from her face, her expression filled with worry.

"Were you hit?" she asked frantically. He shook his head as he began to sit up.

"No," he finally said. "I don't think so," he amended. "I heard the bullet."

"You're both okay?" Gibbs asked, helping Kelly to a seated position.

"Aside from my head hitting the ground," Kelly replied. She gave Caiden a shaky smile. "I'm not a football player. I can't handle being tackled."

He smiled, relief apparent on his face. "Oh, God, Kell." He couldn't manage anything else as he reached for her and pulled her close. "Thank God you're alright."

Knowing when he wasn't needed, Agent Gibbs stood back and watched them for a moment. The full weight of what had just happened had finally hit Kelly; he could tell by the pallor of her skin and the way her hands were shaking as she held onto Dillon that the next few days were going to be hard on her. He couldn't help but feel like he had let her down--again.

**Sixteen years ago**

_"Kelly," Gunnery Sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs said gently, tucking a lock of his daughter's hair behind her ear and trying to keep a brave face on, for her sake. It wasn't easy. Even though her doctors had spent over half an hour explaining her injuries and trying to prepare Gibbs for what he was going to see, he still had a hard time believing that the slight form on that hospital bed was his daughter. She had large purple circles around both eyes, which they said was from the bleeding into her brain after the accident. A patch of her hair had been shaved off for brain surgery--his little girl had brain surgery!--an oxygen tube ran under her nose, and her left arm was covered in a bright pink cast. He wished he could have been there before they put that cast on her arm, so he could tell them that she didn't like pink, that his eight-year-old daughter knew how to shoot a rifle and rode horses on the beach and liked to sail and _didn't_ like pink. But he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there when Shannon was shot and drove the car into a telephone pole, wasn't there when they rushed Kelly to the hospital, wasn't there for the emergency brain surgery or the surgery for her arm or for to be by her side when she woke from her coma. He had been somewhere in the Middle East, off on some mission to eliminate a target he couldn't care less about, and it had taken them more than a week to track him down and get him to D.C. A sob escaped his lips before he could stop it._

_"Daddy?" He opened his eyes to see Kelly's bright blue eyes fixed on him, a quizzical expression on her face. He squeezed her hand gently._

_"Hi, Kelly," he said, trying to smile and hoping he wasn't failing too miserably. "How are you feeling?"_

_"My head hurts," she whispered. He nodded and pressed the nurse's call button by her head before pressing his lips to her temple._

_"I'll kiss it better," he promised. She gave him a tired smile._

_"Daddy?" she asked again. "What happened?"_

_He fought the urge to squeeze his eyes closed in pain. "There was an accident," he said gently, "when your mom was driving." He would tell her the truth, later, when she was strong enough to handle it. "The car hit a telephone pole, and you were hurt pretty bad. You're in the hospital now, and the doctors and nurses are taking good care of you."_

_She tried to squeeze his hand back, the pressure of her fingers barely registering in Gibbs' mind. "Is Mommy okay?"_

_"No, honey," he said as gently as he could, fighting to keep his own tears back. "Kelly, Mom didn't make it. Mommy went to heaven." Her big blue eyes filled with tears, an almost disbelieving look on her face, before her entire body shook in silent sobs. Gibbs held onto her as she cried, and swore that he would do more, that he would do everything he could to keep her safe. He had failed her once, and wouldn't do so again._

Gibbs blinked back the memory and focused on the young woman in front of him. Not for the first time, he wondered what a psychologist would make of her—the girl who lost her mother to a sniper had grown up to become one of the best riflists in the world. Now, she recently lost a former boyfriend and came close to losing her current one--and herself--to another sniper, and as soon as she could, she would be right back at the firing range, preparing for her next competition. He smiled slightly at the irony before looking away to greet the CID and DCPD teams that had just arrived.

He reached into his pocket as his cell phone rang, seeing DiNozzo's name on the display. "Gibbs," he answered.

"We got 'em, Boss."

"Good work, DiNozzo. I'll meet you back at NCIS." He snapped the phone closed before returning his attention to the two junior officers in front of him. "Dillon," he barked. The pilot looked up, still holding Kelly close. "Where's your cover?"

As if just realizing it wasn't on, he patted his head before glancing around him. A second later, he held up the folded garrison cap for Gibbs to see.

"You want this as evidence?" he asked, a strange smile on his face. Kelly looked up to see the bullet holes through the cloth cover, and to everyone's surprise, started laughing.

"Holy shit, Caiden," was all she managed to get out in her laughter. Dillon only grinned in response and held her closer. Gibbs gave his first real smile since all of this began. She was going to be fine.


	14. Chapter 14

Special Agent Tony DiNozzo glanced up at the sound of the elevator doors opening, and this time didn't bother to hide his smirk. "You're late, Boss," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Had a good reason, DiNozzo," Agent Gibbs replied, not missing a beat. DiNozzo frowned when he realized that his boss was wearing a black suit, something he had only seen Gibbs wear once.

"Going to a funeral, Boss?" he asked, trying to make it a joke.

"Sergeant McLaughlin's," Gibbs confirmed. Knowing when it was a good time to shut up, DiNozzo returned his attention to the reports he still had to write.

A minute later, the distinctive sound of the elevator doors opening again could be heard. "Took you two long enough," Agent Gibbs commented as Ensign Kelly Gibbs and First Lieutenant Caiden Dillon stepped out.

"The elevator stopped," Ensign Gibbs replied, a slight smirk on her face. Her father only rolled his eyes.

"You're wearing the sword!" DiNozzo exclaimed, seeing the long scabbard hanging on Ensign Gibbs' left. She smiled slightly and pulled it out, snapping it into position.

"Just wish it were under better circumstances," she remarked as she replaced it. "It's a military funeral with full honors. Figured I should be dressed appropriately." DiNozzo just then realized she was in full Navy dress blues, something he had never seen her in before.

"Nice diamond," Officer David commented. Kelly grinned as she held up her left hand.

"Thanks," she replied, shooting a grin at Lt. Dillon. "He did well."

"Let me see that," DiNozzo commanded, all but snatching up her hand. "The lieutenant has nice taste," he remarked, winking at Kelly.

"I like to think so," Dillon replied with a grin of his own.

"You going to let me know when the wedding is, so I don't miss it?" DiNozzo asked.

"Technically, DiNozzo, you already did," Agent Gibbs commented.

"We went to JAG and signed all the papers this morning," Ensign Gibbs confirmed. "We wanted to get everything squared away before Caiden leaves for Iraq."

"And your father was okay with that?"

Agent Gibbs snorted. "Who do you think came up with the idea?" he asked dryly.

"We're having a ceremony when Caiden gets back from Iraq, at the Naval Academy chapel," Kelly added.

"And I'll be invited?"

Kelly snorted and rolled her eyes. "Fat chance," she scoffed. "But if you're nice to Ziva for the next year and a half, maybe she'll agree to let you come as her date." That got a laugh from everyone except DiNozzo, who made a face and sat back down at his desk.

"Lt. Dillon," Director Shepard called out from the loft. "Your car is waiting."

"Thank you, ma'am," he replied. Turning to Kelly, he said, "The guys are not going to let me live down being delivered to base in an NCIS Towncar."

"Yet somehow, life goes on," Kelly joked. "Take care."

"You, too," he replied, bending down to kiss her goodbye. Agent Gibbs rolled his eyes and moved to smack them both in the back of the head.

"You mess up my hair, I'm hitting back," Ensign Gibbs warned before he could do anything, not even having to turn her head to know what her father was planning on doing. In response, he hit Dillon twice.

"You're married now," he explained. "Means you share the punishments."

"I think I can live with that," Dillon replied with a grin. He shook his new father-in-law's hand. "I'll be back in a couple of weeks."

Gibbs nodded. "Next time you're here, I'll take you out to the rifle range and show you how to shoot," he said. "Kelly's a lousy teacher."

"Sounds good, Gibbs," Dillon said. He gave his wife another small kiss before turning for the elevator.

"You ready to go?" Agent Gibbs asked his daughter. She nodded once and threaded her arm through his as he escorted her out of the building.

* * *

Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann didn't say anything as she took up position next to Agent Jethro Gibbs, a good distance away from the rest of the crowd at Sergeant Jack McLaughlin's graveside service. "Military funeral with full honors at Arlington," Gibbs commented a moment later, still facing forward. "Pretty impressive for a Staff Sergeant who died on U.S. soil."

"He died in combat," Mann explained, also looking forward. "Just not the type of combat most people think of." Gibbs nodded his understanding but didn't say anything.

"We got the confessions from Corporals Mitchell and King," Mann continued. "They're on their way to Guantanamo now."

"Did they say why they did it?"

She shrugged. "Money. I don't know if I believe it or not, but it's Gitmo's problem now." They both went silent and snapped to attention as the rifles gave a twenty-one gun salute. Mann didn't speak again until Taps was completed.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice. He turned to face her, almost looking surprised.

"Don't apologize for doing your job," he told her.

"I didn't exactly do it very well," she commented, rolling her eyes in frustration. After a minute of silence, she continued, "I've agreed to stay with CID and help interview with my replacement."

"You're leaving?" Now he was surprised.

"Retiring," she corrected. "I have twenty-two years in."

He nodded. "I'm sure Director Shepard—"

"She already offered," Mann interrupted. "I want to retire, Gibbs, not do the exact same thing for people with different uniforms." She returned her attention to the post-funeral crowd, seeing a middle-aged woman talking to Ensign Gibbs, holding the younger woman's left hand. Even from the distance, Mann could see the shine of a new ring.

"They finally made it official?" she asked, nodding toward the ensign. Gibbs nodded.

"Very," he said dryly. "They eloped this morning." Mann smiled slightly, fighting the urge to say the first thing that came to her mind about daughters being like their fathers.

Instead, she commented, "Some honeymoon." They stood silently together for a minute before Mann spoke again. "I guess she has someone new to protect her now."

Gibbs gave a sarcastic snort. "She hasn't needed anyone to protect her since she was ten." He paused. "It's a hard lesson for a father to learn," he added softly enough that Mann wasn't sure she heard it all. She didn't comment.

Ensign Gibbs returned a quick salute from Sergeant Ben Preston before turning and heading toward her father. At the proper distance, she saluted. Mann, surprised by the move, took a moment before she returned it.

"Colonel," Kelly greeted. "Thank you."

That surprised Mann even more. "For what?" she asked. "I went after you when there was hardly any evidence and put your career at risk."

"Well, yeah," Kelly said. "But if you hadn't been investigating me, no one would have noticed when I snuck out of the hospital and came looking for me. Your investigation saved my life, and Caiden's."

She had to admit, she hadn't thought of it that way. "I just wanted you to know, I spoke to the USUHS Commandant and the Surgeon General of the Navy. As far as the Medical Corps is concerned, there was no investigation."

Ensign Gibbs nodded. "Thank you for that, too." She hesitated before turning to her father. "I'll meet you at the car." He rolled his eyes but didn't argue as he walked away. Kelly gestured in the opposite direction, indicating she wanted to walk and talk.

Both officers returned a salute from a Marine before Kelly spoke. "I'm sorry about you and Dad."

"It had nothing to do with you, Kelly," Mann told her. Kelly smiled slightly.

"With all due respect, ma'am, I don't believe you." They walked several more steps before Mann spoke again.

"For fifteen years, there has been only one woman who has mattered in the life of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and she builds boats and fires Marine sniper rifles." She was silent for a few more steps. "You're lucky to have found someone without baggage."

Ensign Gibbs gave another small, enigmatic smile that came directly from her father. "We all have baggage, Holly. It's just about how we handle it." She smiled again before snapping to attention and rendering another salute. Mann smiled, almost sadly, before returning the salute. She watched Ensign Kelly Gibbs walk away, and couldn't shake the nagging hope that it wouldn't be the last time.

**The End**


End file.
